UX Research: Kevel Reporting
role
UX/UI Designer
timeline
Sept - Nov 2023
team
Product Manager
UX/UI Designer
links
kevel.com
deliverables
User Interviews
User Persona
CJM
description
Kevel provides ad serving and infrastructure solutions for online advertising. The Kevel Ad Platform has a Reporting module. Kevel wanted to learn how people use it and improve the UX in reporting. I conducted research with user interviews and collected results in a customer journey map with recommendations.
Table of contents
ContextResearch StatementMethodologyRecruitmentAnalysis of interviewsDeliverablesRecommendationsImpactReflectionsContext
The Kevel Ad Platform serves as a campaign management tool, offering a range of features, including a robust Reporting function. This tool empowers users to track and analyze the performance of their campaigns. However, the abundance of parameters for creating diverse reports can be initially challenging for users to grasp. While the flexibility of options is appreciated, the learning curve often involves a trial-and-error approach.
Kevel is actively working to streamline this process, aiming to minimize the need for users to seek assistance from the customer success team. Improving the user experience within the Reporting feature is a key focus area for ongoing enhancements.
These are the pages I was analyzing:
Report Creation page
Generated Report page
Scheduled Report page
Research Statement
The objective of this UX research is to gain a deep understanding of user behaviors, needs, and pain points to improve the overall user experience of Reporting in the Core UI. This is part of the ongoing process of decreasing the volume of requests from customers to the customer success managers.
Methodology
Although we had some written requests from customers, our primary method was user interviews with people who use Kevel Reporting.
Interviews
45-60 minutes
per interview
Recruitment criteria & process
We chose to interview two sides: Customer Success Managers from Kevel and Customers. Recruiting internal Kevel employees was simple. Recruiting customers was a bit more tricky because we had to find the right time for everyone. This is how many people we managed to interview:
10
Total number of interviews
5
Customer Success Managers
5
Customers
Analysis of interviews
I used the Fireflies.ai tool to record and transcribe all interviews. After the interviews, I would read the transcription and jot down important information.
610
Minutes transcribed & analysed
Deliverables
While interviewing people and collecting information I came to the conclusion that just a list of feature requests and pain points would not be enough. Two things that I decided to create:
User Personas
A Customer Journey Map
1. User Persona #1: Ad Operations Specialist
This is a user persona that comes from the customer side.
Brian Chesky
Bio
Age:
29
Job:
AdOps Specialist
Location:
Amsterdam, NL
Brian works as an ad operations specialist. He is an avid user of the Core UI. He creates campaigns, manages them, and runs reports to see how they have been performing. Kevel is a tool for him.
Core Needs
Setup campaigns
Run reports to check campaign performance
Looks for certain metrics in reports
Download reports in the CSV format
Needs to make sure that campaigns deliver and run as expected
User data from Kevel reports to create keynotes for business development
Sometimes, troubleshoot for merchants
Frustrations
Need to run a report every time to check performance
Need to select the correct settings every time to run a similar report
No options to quickly check how reports are performing (pre-saved reports)
No option to choose the desired metrics
They get all metrics in the reports, some of them are confusing and they lack an explanation
No options to filter columns or customize the table
User Persona #2: Customer Success Manager
This is a user persona that comes from the Kevel side
Katy Wood
Bio
Age:
33
Job:
Customer Success Manager
Location:
London, UK
Catherine has been at Kevel for a couple of years. She is pretty knowledgeable about the Core UI. She works directly with customers: runs education sessions, replies to questions, and proposes possible opportunities.
Core Needs
Show demo of UI to customers
Resolve troubleshooting questions that tie to performance
Export reports in the CSV format
Find patterns and opportunities for business reviews
Frustrations
Need to run a report to see basic information (pulse checks)
No options to customize the report table (filters, hiding columns)
No quick actions to run a report (pre-saved settings)
Need to export the report to do basic manipulations
No option to choose metrics beforehand which slows down the report-generation process
Would love to see more visualisation options
2. A Customer Journey Map
The best way to visualize the information for me was to create the CJM with the step by step user flow and all feature requests.
CJM explanation:
The CJM has been divided into smaller steps
Since users were providing detailed feedback on even small parts of the flow, I felt that it was important to dedicate full columns to that.
Green post its
Generic and positive comments
Orange post its
Pain points and barriers of users
Purple post its
Opportunities for us and where we can make our platform better
Recommendations
I decided two divide recommendations into two parts:
Minor upgrades
They require less human power to fix them
Major upgrades
These need more attention from teams and will take longer to implement
1. Minor upgrades
Date picker
Users requested to include some pre-sets for picking the date. Like "last month", "last week" etc.
Currently, the date picker only has the "custom date selection" available.
Currently, the date picker only has the "custom date selection" available.
Page: Report Creation
Group By's
It is used to select the type of report a user would like to get. There are multiple choices. Some of them lack explanation and cause confusion.
We need to regroup them according to their type. And provide more guidance or tooltips.
We need to regroup them according to their type. And provide more guidance or tooltips.
Page: Report Creation
Tooltips
Users tend to be confused by the amount of possibilities in the report creation. One of the easiest solutions could be to include more guidance and tooltips.
But I see this as a quick, temporary measure. More UX work should be done to decrease difficulty.
But I see this as a quick, temporary measure. More UX work should be done to decrease difficulty.
Page: Report Creation
Filters
Minor changes that would make filters more user-friendly:
- Bulk selection
- Checkboxes for selected filters
- Adding IDs to flight names
- Bulk selection
- Checkboxes for selected filters
- Adding IDs to flight names
Page: Report Creation
Table Filters
This is a very popular feature request. Users need to filter out data that don't need.
Page: Generated Report
Download button location
The current location of the download button is at the bottom left corner. On a smaller screen, it doesn't even get to the viewport.
My suggestion is to move it to the top right corner.
My suggestion is to move it to the top right corner.
Page: Generated Report
Tooltips in column headers
Some metrics confuse users. We have a couple of tooltips in the column headers but we need to describe each metric.
Page: Generated Report
Table customisation
By default, a generated report has all available metrics. In most cases, most of them are not needed.
My suggestion is to add table customization to be able to hide irrelevant columns and rearrange them.
My suggestion is to add table customization to be able to hide irrelevant columns and rearrange them.
Page: Generated Report
Report sharing
Users tend to share their reports with coworkers or with clients. The usual flow is to click the site address and copy it.
My suggestion is to add the "copy link" button near the download button.
My suggestion is to add the "copy link" button near the download button.
Page: Generated Report
2. Major upgrades
Pre-saved reports / templates
Quite often users would run similar reports. And every time they would need to select the settings they need.
My suggestion is to have the option to save reports for a "quick generation". Or provide a few templates of reports.
My suggestion is to have the option to save reports for a "quick generation". Or provide a few templates of reports.
Page: Report Creation
FAQ bubble
On the report creation page, users could have the FAQ bubble which would have some quick formulas on how to achieve certain results.
This could kill the necessity to go to the documentation portal. They would have it inside.
This could kill the necessity to go to the documentation portal. They would have it inside.
Page: Report Creation
Hide the overview panel
The overview panel on the generated report page has the information about the report. Users like to have it.
My suggestion is to hide it to create room for the main table since users do not need it visible at all times.
My suggestion is to hide it to create room for the main table since users do not need it visible at all times.
Page: Generated Report
Full screen table
The table is what users are looking for. In the current design, the table is jammed between the overview panel and the visualization section below.
I suggest we expand the table to full screen to have more info in a viewport.
I suggest we expand the table to full screen to have more info in a viewport.
Page: Generated Report
Two tabs
This change is relative to the suggestion above. Since we have the visualization below the table and it's not possible to hide it (even if there is no data to show it's still there), we could create two tabs:
- Table (main)
- Chart or visualization (secondary)
- Table (main)
- Chart or visualization (secondary)
Page: Generated Report
Impact
I believe that the findings that we have gathered have a great value to the company. First of all, it was the first big research that the company has done for the Ad Platform. Moreover, the findings that we have now will have a big impact on the Reporting product roadmap in 2024. We are not making assumptions that something is needed - we have real data that shows us what users want and how we can make their lives much easier.
Reflections
I enjoyed the process of interviewing people. Every time they would say something that they’d like to see or something that they didn’t like, I would feel the “Aha!” moment in my head. I feel like it is important to be flexible during the interview process meaning that the script should be adjusted and it is totally normal to add a few additional questions based on the feedback people provide. I am quite excited about the findings and the potential these findings have. Let’s see what would be next for Kevel Reporting.
