Putting Data Control in Customers’ Hands with Fast, Customizable Exports
Placer.ai provides businesses with powerful location analytics, turning foot traffic data into actionable insights. To extend this value, we launched the Export Tool - a platform add-on product that empowers customers to build and customize their own data exports, delivering the exact information they need instantly while eliminating dependence on support teams.
ROLE
Senior Product Designer
TIMEFRAME
2023 - 2024
COLLABORATORS
Product Manager, Engineer, Director of Product Design, Solutions Engineering
From Manual Pain to Scalable Data Delivery
Users relied on bulk exports across several key use cases:
Ongoing Monitoring: business performance tracking, competitive benchmarking, predictive modeling, and impact measurement.
Ad-Hoc Analysis: generating custom reports and presentations, conducting exploratory analysis, and uncovering insights.
External Integration: embedding Placer data into third-party products and platforms.
Automated Workflows: leveraging APIs to seamlessly pull Placer.ai insights into other tools without manual effort.
The demand was high for recurring custom bulk data exports to be delivered directly to their inboxes. Fulfilling these requests required the Support team to manually configure and adjust each feed to user specifications - a process that was time-intensive for the team and frustrating for users due to slower than expected turnaround times.
Together with the Product Manager we defined the MVP scope, mapping core user requirements and edge cases, while also planning features for future development milestones.
The Export Tool was my first project at Placer working on the main product as well as with a new Product Manager. This required me to adapt quickly to his work style and pace while establishing an efficient collaboration and learning the ins and outs of the Placer Design System in more depth. I also needed to quickly get up to speed on the complexity of data exports, including intricate user flows and edge cases.
The project changed ownership multiple times before it landed with me and the Product Manager with whom I developed the initial wireframes and built the MVP. All UI was clearly documented and the Figma file was designed to be highly organized, ensuring that anyone opening the Figma file could easily understand the tool’s structure and user flow if the product changed hands once-again.
A deep-dive into the core user-flow
In our research, we identified several places where users might wish for a customizable export experience. From the tool’s homepage or relevant entry points, users were presented with tailored report templates pre-filled with metrics and POI attributes, which they could adjust or use as-is. If the user came from a list of entities, those entities were automatically pulled into the export tool to save time.
Starting Point 1
Starting Point 2
Example of an entry point that would populate the export with all the location data included in the customer’s portfolio, skipping the entity selection step in the flow
The export templates shown are tailored to the user’s selected entity type
Template selection determines the default report configurations
After clicking on ‘Save & Generate’ the user can preview the export and perform various actions
Streamlined Actions and Permissions for Every User
After the user creates a report, they are able to download the export, preview it, edit, duplicate, share, schedule a recurring export, or subscribe others to exports. We defined exactly what permissions would be available for report owners versus users who have had a report shared with them. This put control firmly in the user’s hands.
Example of a populated homepage with actions available
Only report owners can edit who has access to the report
Prototyping and User-Testing
After finalizing a strong high-fidelity design, we created prototypes tailored to specific verticals and use cases. These prototypes were presented to customers for usability testing to ensure our design goals aligned with user needs, that interactions were intuitive, and to uncover any overlooked pain points or features. Each session followed a clear script and structured feedback methodology, keeping the focus on our objectives. Insights from these sessions informed the development of an internal beta MVP.
The Results
My involvement concluded just before the MVP (beta) development was put on hold due to a temporary lack of development resources. Consequently, I do not have direct success metrics. However, the project was later delivered successfully and received highly positive client feedback. The team continues to leverage the foundational design, user insights, and feature contributions I established, with ongoing plans to expand the Export Tool's capabilities through 2025 and 2026.