RetailIQ — Redesigning expansion reports for strategic decision-making
My role
Product Designer
Timeline
1 month (from design to production)
Team
Product, Engineering, Sales, and Business Stakeholders
Responsibilities
Information Architecture | UX Design | UI Design | Design Iterations | Stakeholder Workshops | Design System Alignment
My Contribution
As the Product Designer, I led the redesign of the Site Report experience, focusing on improving information hierarchy, usability, and decision support. My responsibilities included auditing the existing experience, identifying usability challenges, exploring alternative layouts, creating wireframes, designing the final UI, and aligning the solution with the broader RetailIQ design system.
I worked closely with stakeholders throughout the project to ensure the redesign balanced user needs, business objectives, and technical feasibility.
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
Store expansion decisions involve significant investments and long-term commitments.
The Site Report is one of the primary tools used by expansion teams to evaluate locations and reduce decision risk.
The problem
The existing report contained valuable data but lacked clear prioritization.
Users struggled to identify key insights, compare locations efficiently, and understand what information mattered most during decision-making.
The challenge was not access to data—it was helping users make sense of it.
Constraints & Considerations
Several factors influenced the redesign:
Cross-functional feedback
Requirements and feedback were collected from:
Product Team
Sales Team
Engineering Team
Business Stakeholders
Existing data structure
The report contained a large number of metrics, visualizations, and analytical modules that needed to remain accessible.
Technical feasibility
Design solutions needed to work within existing backend capabilities while supporting future scalability.
Consistency
The redesign needed to align with the broader RetailIQ design language and system standards.
Design process
Understanding user pain points
I reviewed stakeholder feedback, existing report usage patterns, and recurring complaints from teams using the platform.
Three key themes emerged:
Exploring alternatives
Multiple layout directions and information structures were explored.
These explorations focused on:
Surfacing critical metrics earlier
Improving visual hierarchy
Grouping related information
Converting raw data into easier-to-understand signals
Concepts were reviewed with stakeholders and refined through several rounds of feedback.
High cognitive load
Users were forced to interpret raw numbers and manually connect information across sections.
Lack of prioritization
Every metric appeared equally important, making it difficult to identify critical insights.
Poor scanability
Long-form layouts made it difficult to quickly evaluate a location.
Key Design Decisions
1. Prioritizing Business-Critical Metrics
Previously, users had to navigate through large amounts of content before reaching key indicators.
The redesigned experience surfaces:
Revenue Predictions
Market Potential
Location Ratings
Key Highlights
at the beginning of the report, allowing users to understand performance at a glance.
2. Transforming Data Into Signals
Instead of presenting information solely as numbers, visual indicators were introduced to communicate performance more effectively.
This reduced interpretation effort and improved understanding.
3. Establishing Stronger Information Hierarchy
Related content was grouped together using a consistent card structure, spacing system, and visual hierarchy.
This helped users scan information faster and understand relationships between metrics.
4. Creating a Consistent Design Language
A unified component structure was introduced across report sections, improving consistency and reducing visual friction.
This also created a scalable foundation for future report modules.
Solution
The redesign transformed the report from a data repository into a decision-support experience.
Critical insights were surfaced earlier, information was structured more intentionally, and visual hierarchy helped users evaluate locations with greater confidence.
Business Impact
Modernized one of RetailIQ's most frequently used decision-support experiences.
Improved visibility of key business metrics and insights.
Established a scalable reporting framework for future enhancements.
User Impact
Reduced effort required to identify important location insights.
Improved scanability through clearer information hierarchy.
Made complex datasets easier to interpret through visual indicators and structured presentation.
Team Impact
Aligned reporting experiences with the broader RetailIQ design system.
Incorporated feedback from product, engineering, sales, and business stakeholders.
Created a foundation for future report enhancements and feature expansion.
What I Learned
Enterprise users value clarity over novelty. The biggest design improvements often come from prioritizing information rather than adding more of it.
Key Trade-offs
Visibility vs Information Density
One of the key challenges was deciding how much information to surface upfront.
While it was tempting to expose all available metrics immediately, doing so increased cognitive load and reduced scanability. Instead, the final design prioritized decision-critical insights above the fold while allowing users to progressively explore detailed information.
Visual Enhancement vs Familiarity
The redesign introduced a modern visual system, but retaining familiarity for existing users was equally important. The final solution balanced improved aesthetics with recognizable workflows to reduce disruption during adoption.
Business Needs vs Technical Constraints
Certain interaction patterns and visualizations were explored during the design phase but required adjustments based on technical feasibility and platform constraints. The final experience reflects a balance between ideal user experience and practical implementation.
