UI design from scratch for a data preparation solution
Services
Web App design
UI/UX design
We live in a world where data is the new gold. But, like gold, it must be processed to extract business value.
Over the past few years, all forms of information have become richer and far more complex. A typical business user can't get a sense of data unless they have a degree in data science.
SlamData decided to change that.
SlamData is a US-based company that provides software for letting business teams, as well as data engineers, access any API data regardless of source, size, or structure and turn it into analytics-ready tables in minutes.
Using Reform, a SlamData's product, anyone can load data from any source to any destination without having to write any code. Reform integrates with all popular data warehouses, databases, or BI and data science solutions to load data directly with no need to export or stage them.
SlamData has a great team of software engineers who built Reform, a unique and powerful data preparation solution. The only thing they lacked was design.
We were hired to build the user interface for Reform from scratch.
It all started with an HTML file
Despite being incredibly easy for users, Reform is a very complex product from the design standpoint. To design it, we couldn't even look at some similar solutions because there were none.
We started the design process from a simple HTML file that described the business logic of the application. Basically, there was a step-by-step explanation of what must happen in the app as the user is moving forward to complete their goal.
We started with wireframes to build the structure and describe how the functionality is going to work.
As a result, we managed to create a linear flow that lets the user perform everything within one page, and without having to move to other pages during their journey.
How Reform's UI works
The best way to explain how Reform works is by showing you a common use case – using SlamData for marketing data analysis. Let's imagine you have to analyze customer data for your ecommerce business. Reform makes this very easy.
Connect the data source
Your first step is to feed the data from your CRM or marketing platform directly into the tool, either using a direct web link or a raw JSON file.
Transform the data
Reform will convert your data into the appropriate format. We presented it via a clear point-and-click card-based user interface.
You can pick out the keys you need and the system will prepare analytics-ready tables with all the information related to these keys.
The user flow is a bit similar to making a purchase in the online store. You choose a product you need, and when it's time to buy, you go to the shopping cart where you see a summary of the products you are going to purchase.
You can apply different functions to manipulate data in the table. Merge, rename, group, filter – we designed multiple micro-interactions to make the process of data modification easy and intuitive.
Visualize the data
Users can share their processed data with anybody using a web link.
As the last step, you can feed the data into Tableau, Power BI, Data Studio, or your favorite other data visualization tool to gain new insights into your customers.
Every detail matters.
We had one designer work on this project for about a year. We communicated mainly with Becky Conning, their VP of Product.
The overall product look was ready in a few months, but we spent a great deal of time designing micro-features, details and states that are almost invisible on the user interface but have paramount importance for creating an intuitive and pleasant user experience.
Today, the product is live and the team is focused on marketing it to their target audience.
