PRODUCT STRATEGY FOR A DATA CATALOG

What is a Data Catalog? - A challenge emerging global product companies face today is in handling their data, which is often spread geographically and is in a variety of different data formats, making it very difficult to access that data centrally. A Data catalog is a novel approach that industries are taking to make their global data easily accessible and usable to all levels of internal users and teams.

Our clients started with their dev teams building an ambitious data catalog for internal use, which they also intended to sell as a novel product for other companies, all without much of a product vision. We were brought in midway as UX consultants, noting that they need to take a few steps back.

Getting started-Learning on the go

Competitive analysis

We studied a few other data catalog product offerings that are already in the market. We did a competitive analysis and shared that insights with our client to help them evaluate the product features they have built thus far.

Understanding user needs and their mental model

Despite the bureaucratic hurdles, we managed to gain access to a few teams within the company who would benefit from using a data catalog. We tried to understand how they manage their data needs currently and how their job could be made more efficient.

We studied their existing reports and how they are built, while we were trying to understand how their actual data is being distributed. This would later help us to make more tangible and implementable recommendations.

An interesting observation we made was that users would not want to disturb something that they have already built. We came to the opinion that users are more likely to use the new data catalog for their new data needs, like exploring new data sources, pulling entirely new reports, etc.

Design probes

I designed the following concepts based on what we learned about data catalogs thus far. We ran these designs with our users to understand their mental model, their current practices, and expectations from a data catalog.

Building a Product Roadmap

Based on the competitive analysis and user insights, we conducted an alignment session where we all came to an agreement about what all essential features a data catalog must have and what other features this product could have to make it not just useful to them but also make it marketable to other companies. Then we designed a product roadmap to help our client get from where they are to the desired final state - all in a agile cycle to ensure faster deployment and incremental improvements.

The roadmap

Having analyzed all the screens and features of the product, we assessed that the product needed improvement at various levels:

• Quick fixes: On-screen changes we need to make to fix the usability issues. These fixes included iconography, vocabulary, terminology, accessibility, adherence to interaction patterns, etc.

• Improving overall product experience: These included changes to minimise the learning curve and make the product intuitive and easy to use. We suggested:

  • Coherent grouping of similar features and categorization of the feature types.

  • Making important features most accessible,

  • Suggesting standard and more contextual infographics and visuals to represent data,

  • Enhancing consistency in Information Architecture,

  • Creating help, guides, tips, FAQs where needed, etc.

• Missing features: Based on the Competitive analysis and SME insights, we also identified several important features that were completely missing in the product, while certain features we identified as less valuable were built with heavy investment. This part of the roadmap involved prioritizing these features based on value.

Finally, we put together an action plan of how the design and dev teams can continue working by making incremental enhancements.

Quick fixes

Based on the agreed roadmap, I identified several quick fixes and UX/UI changes across all existing screens and features. With the help of our visual designer, we created a detailed InVision handbook, which helped the dev team identify and implement our suggested changes on each screen.

Since our client’s dev teams were very distributed and less coordinated. We left enough instructions and updated all screens with all the enhancements, so that they could implement the changes without any conflicts.

UX Improvements

The next phase of the project has not kicked off yet, but as a starting point to kick off the conversations, I designed these UX feature improvements based on our findings thus far.

User tasks- I defined certain specific tasks users would perform using the catalog. I kept these tasks in mind when designing solutions.

• wants to catalog a table

• wants to catalog a group of tables (within a schema)

• wants to catalog a group of tables (across multiple schemas)

• wants to analyze a group of tables (within a schema)

• wants to analyze a group of tables (across multiple schemas) 

Reflection

This project gave me great exposure to working with complex data systems and restructuring the product strategy of an already built product.

Also, we all walked into it with almost no knowledge about data catalogs. This project pushed our limits of learning on the go.

I had an opportunity to make several usability improvements and also lead efforts for the overall user experience improvements for the product.