comScore

How did we get there?

Research & Analysis - I started by analyzing over 50 custom reports commissioned by brands and agencies. After I identified all of the common questions being answered by the studies, I stack ranked them by frequency of occurrence and placement in the study. With a straw man to test against, I ran the questions by several industry leaders to verify my understandings of how the information was being used, then I made revisions. I reviewed this new list with a beta group of users to validate existing information to make sure I wasn't missing anything.  

Sketching Ideas - I spent the next two weeks working on rough sketches, determining how to combine data points to best answers top questions.

Data Viability - With sketches in hand, I met with our data scientists and data ops teams to ensure we could actually get all the data and transform it with the different pivots needed (refresh time combined with time period, demographics, by publishers).  After those meetings, I had a better sense of what was possible by when and created a roll out plan. We couldn't make it to market by the deadline with all of my ideas, so I prioritized and simplified the design. And with an understanding of the data needed, the data teams began work on the necessary feeds.

Start Building - Because of my close relationship with our development teams, we were use to working from rough wireframes to determine what they could and should get started on before design was finalized. We met, reviewed the sketches and identified foundational work they should start. They created tickets for the work in Jira and ran it through our scrum team, which I was part of.

More Sketching & Prototypes - Eighty five percent of the design came together relatively quickly and easily. I was lucky enough to have a strong understanding at this point of our customers needs and a small, strong  team of advisers within the company who had previously worked in the industry. They were great for running quick ideas by and stress testing visualizations. I also loved testing designs with folks within the company who had no industry knowledge like our HR and recruiting team. I knew  if they could quickly understand the visualizations, then they would be clear to the intended audience. 

Test & Simplify - After I felt confident about most of the design, I took it to the streets, so to speak. During testing people struggled with the same two visualizations. I was trying to do too much in one chart. And though it caused me physical pain because I felt like I was only telling half of a story, I had let go of my own bias and simplify what I was trying to say.

More Building and Unit Testing - Once there was enough dev work ready I tested and retested all releases in our staging environment. I prioritized bugs and fielded questions and was available for ad-hoc design. 

A Little More Than Minimal Viable Product - There was a lot of infrastructure needed to support the product. We knew it just couldn't all make it into the first release or even the second. With the heads of Product & Customer Support, we hashed out a plan on how to handle support manually for 3 months post launch. We determined with dev the most bare bones permission model we could launch with and put full backend system integration on hold. 

Design Keeps on Going - While testing and development was moving fast, I continued design work on more of the administrative side of the product that would launch in later phases.

Beta Launch - We did a short, two week  Beta with a select group of clients. It went well with only a handful of high priority bugs.

Launch - As already mentioned, AdEffx launched on time with great fanfare and success. AdEffx went on to become an umbrella for a suite of new products and because of the flexible architecture and design of the platform, we were able to easily extend the platform to incorporate both an acquired product and another I later defined, designed and launched. That first launch was a real sprint to get it done. The release was only possible because of all the great collaboration and relationships. It was an amazing team effort. One I am still proud of today.