Portal: Closing the last-mile of analytics

Operational landing page for commerce teams

Portal shows daily/weekly order volume with built-in comparisons (previous year, historical min) and an anomaly band to call out unusual variance. I designed the chart to prioritize pattern recognition: high-contrast candlestick/box visuals give decision makers an at-a-glance sense of volatility, while the contextual numbers on top surface immediate business signals (e.g., % change vs. previous year).
Micro takeaway: this screen turns a high-volume time series into a readable operational feed so ops and support can triage fast.

The hero illustration was created using AI to set a welcoming, modern tone without relying on stock imagery. Clear CTAs and simple form fields support quick sign-in or account creation.

Activation Tracking

Activation is a classic product metric that benefits from cohort and trend perspective. I layered a filled-area visualization with dashed cohort-comparison lines to let product teams compare multiple cohorts without clutter. The design balances visual hierarchy (primary activation shape) with exploratory overlays to support both storytelling and investigation in the same view.
Micro takeaway: the chart supports rapid hypothesis formation (e.g., “activation spiked after onboarding tweaks”) and invites follow-ups.

Onboarding Home

First impressions matter. The home view gives users two unambiguous choices: connect a data source or explore demo data. Two large, clearly labeled CTAs reduce cognitive load and guide users to the fastest path to value. Supporting links (invite teammate, schedule demo) provide social proof and onboarding help.
Micro takeaway: reduces time to first meaningful insight, a critical adoption metric.

Reports Hub

Reports are stories built from metrics. The Reports Hub centralizes saved views, encourages annotations and provides a clear separation between personal, shared, and org-level reports. This helps avoid fragmentation — stakeholders can subscribe to a report rather than hunting dashboards. The hub also nudges users toward creating one-page narratives (title, context, metric panels) instead of exporting ad-hoc charts.
Micro takeaway: turns single-use dashboards into reusable, shareable narratives.

Data Sources

Onboarding is a conversion funnel for analytics. We minimized friction with two distinct paths: “Try demo data” for instant exploration, and a clear connector grid for production warehouses (BigQuery, Redshift, Postgres, etc.). The CTA pattern encouraged exploration while providing a safe entry for teams with compliance questions.
Micro takeaway: demo pathway accelerates time-to-insight; connectors ensure enterprise readiness.

Targets

Targets tie metrics to outcomes. The Targets interface presents goal sheets in digestible cards with time grain and ranges, enabling business owners to set monthly/quarterly goals and track attainment. This makes metrics actionable at a strategic level and creates a single source for goal alignment.
Micro takeaway: shifting metrics from passive signals to active targets improves accountability.

Next Steps

• Introduce governance workflows – Add metric approval, versioning, and lineage to ensure trust in high-scale deployments.

• Expand AI usage – Explore AI-assisted chart explanations and onboarding copy to further lower barriers for non-technical users.

• Prebuilt metric templates – Offer industry-standard KPI blueprints (e.g., churn, MRR, activation) to accelerate setup for new customers.

• Enhanced demo-to-live handoff – Design clearer guidance and visual cues for teams transitioning from demo data to their real datasets.

• Deeper integrations – Add connectors for popular SaaS tools (e.g., HubSpot, Salesforce) to enrich reporting and adoption across departments.

Tradeoffs & What I Learned

• Balancing speed vs. governance – Prioritized quick onboarding (demo data, self-service metric creation) over advanced governance features to accelerate adoption, knowing I need to address trust and control later.

• Transparency builds trust – Including an auto-generated SQL preview in the metric editor reassured analysts and increased adoption among technical teams.

• AI visuals as brand assets – Using AI-generated imagery on the login page created a distinctive, modern tone while avoiding generic stock art, but required iteration to match the product’s visual system.

• Cohort views vs. chart clarity – Showing multiple activation cohorts in one chart offered richer insight but risked visual complexity; careful layering and hierarchy mitigated this.

• Demo mode tradeoff – Providing instant demo data shortened time-to-value dramatically but created potential expectation gaps when switching to real datasets.