Reduce the load on the reporting infrastructure by changing the frontend experience so that the user has clarity on the state of the report generation process
Reporting infrastructure was facing scaling issues. Report generation was failing in case the content load or the number of requests was high. On the frontend side, when the merchant wanted to download a report, the merchant had to wait for the content to be fetched completely. In this case, the user had no clarity on how long the report generation would take or whether user had to request for it again. This led to increase in number of redundant requests from the users which further led to increase in the load on reports infrastructure.
Looking at the project brief we tried figuring out users who were requesting the most number of reports and started interviewing them to understand their experience with the reports page. Turns out they had dedicated few users whose primary work was to download reports every 4 hours to generate receipts for the transactions made. Some of these merchants were downloading 500+ reports every month out of which 30% were redundant requests.
My primary goal on this project was to provide clarity on the status of the report that was requested by the user so that they didn't request for the same report again.
We started out running the project in a typical way:
Brief → User calls → Paper wireframes → Design iterations → Review & Delivery.
Later on, we tried running rough wireframes, few paper sketches to see if we were doing the right thing and solving most of the problems and then finally came up with certain set of UI designs.
Came up with a section that showed all previous requested reports so that the user could focus on the historic requests and download from the list instead of creating new report requests.
Report request form was hidden by default so that the user could focus on the recent reports section. If the user had to generate a new report, user would have to click on the Generate Report CTA which would enlarge the section and show up the reports request form as shown in the image below.
This simple change drastically reduced the redundant requests from the users.
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Complete end to end flow was created for the new redesign of reports page. Components for different statuses were created and delivered for documenting into the design system.
The redesign significantly enhanced the efficiency of the reports infrastructure by minimizing redundant user requests, effectively addressing a backend issue through frontend solutions. Users experienced improved access to existing reports through the newly generated list, with hotjar video recordings enabling comprehensive monitoring of user behavior. Subsequent updates were strategically planned, designed, and successfully implemented.
