Compare Site Reports
My Role
Product Designer
Timeline
3 weeks (from design to production)
Responsibilities
UX Design | Information Architecture | Data Visualization | Workflow Design| Stakeholder Reviews
My Contribution
As the Product Designer, I led the redesign of the location comparison experience within RetailIQ. My focus was on helping users evaluate multiple locations more efficiently by improving information structure, highlighting meaningful differences, and simplifying comparison workflows.
I was responsible for workflow design, information architecture, comparison frameworks, UI design, and the introduction of a structured comparison export experience.
Overview
RetailIQ helps retail brands evaluate locations and make store expansion decisions using location intelligence and market analytics.
My work focused on redesigning one of the platform's most critical decision-support experiences.
Why It Matters
Location decisions rarely involve a single option.
Teams need to compare multiple locations, understand trade-offs, and align stakeholders around the strongest opportunity.
The Problem
Comparing locations required users to switch between reports, manually evaluate metrics, and identify differences on their own.
The process was time-consuming, inconsistent, and heavily dependent on individual interpretation.
Constraints & Considerations
Multiple Stakeholders
The solution needed to support:
Business Development Teams
Expansion Managers
Leadership Reviews
Large Data Sets
Each location contained multiple categories of information:
Demographics
Revenue Predictions
Competition Analysis
Market Potential
Location Scores
Export Requirements
Users often needed comparison data outside the platform for presentations and discussions.
This led to the introduction of a dedicated comparison export workflow.
Consistency
The redesign needed to align with the broader RetailIQ design language and system standards.
Design Process
Understanding Comparison Behavior
Through stakeholder discussions and workflow reviews, it became clear that users were primarily asking:
Which location performs better?
Why is it better?
What are the trade-offs?
The design needed to highlight differences rather than simply display information.
Exploring Comparison Models
Several comparison structures were explored:
Side-by-side layouts
Summary-first approaches
Score-driven comparisons
Export-friendly formats
The final direction focused on surfacing decision-critical information first while maintaining access to detailed data.
Key Design Decisions
1. Prioritizing Differences Over Similarities
Instead of treating all information equally, the design emphasizes metrics that help users distinguish between locations.
3. Creating a Comparison Export Experience
A dedicated Excel comparison flow was introduced, allowing users to compare up to five locations in a format suitable for external reviews and decision-making meetings.
2. Structuring Information for Faster Evaluation
Data was grouped into meaningful categories, allowing users to compare related metrics without excessive scrolling.
4. Improving Visual Scanning
Visual indicators and structured layouts were used to reduce effort required to identify strengths and weaknesses across locations.
Solution
The redesigned comparison experience surfaces meaningful differences, structures information for faster evaluation, and supports both digital and export-based decision-making workflows.
Business Impact
Improved the evaluation workflow used during location selection.
Supported faster comparison of multiple candidate sites.
Enhanced collaboration through export-friendly outputs.
User Impact
Reduced effort required to identify meaningful differences between locations.
Improved decision confidence through structured comparisons.
Increased visibility of critical evaluation criteria.
Team Impact
Created a scalable comparison framework for future reporting enhancements.
Established patterns for handling large comparative datasets.
What I Learned
Comparison experiences are most effective when they highlight differences instead of treating all information equally.
Key Trade-offs
Completeness vs Decision Speed
Users wanted access to comprehensive location data, but presenting everything equally made comparisons difficult.
The final design prioritized metrics most relevant to decision-making while still providing access to supporting details when needed.
Flexibility vs Simplicity
Several comparison models were explored, including highly customizable comparison views. While flexible, these approaches introduced additional complexity.
The chosen solution focused on a structured comparison framework that reduced effort and improved consistency across evaluations.
Platform Experience vs Export Needs
Users frequently needed comparison data outside the platform for presentations and discussions. Rather than forcing all workflows into the product, a dedicated comparison export experience was introduced to support offline decision-making.
