Digital Experience Analytics (DXA)
DXA is a collection of analysis tools that work together in a single app to elevate Digital at Qualtrics from a simple feedback-focused solution into a market-competitive analytics tool.
I collaborated with Product and Engineering Leadership to articulate a vision, refine and validate with users, build organizational alignment, scale the team, and develop an actionable path forward.
Vision work + product development
As development on Session Replay progressed, I started working with stakeholders on what would come next.
Initially, we set out to define a more digital-first version of Qualtrics, through iteration and feedback, scope and strategy evolved to Digital tools in Qualtrics, then to a Digital App.
Digital Gateway
Focus on time to value and supporting users growth
Qualtrics is powerful but complicated. Research, usage data, and user feedback all show that new customers have a hard time getting started and the path to more mature usage is steep.
I developed a concept that packaged lightweight versions of established Qualtrics capabilities with the data stream coming from Digital. The primary goal was to get users to insights quicker.
The prototype I demoed to partner teams leaned hard on the simple onboarding experience and how no-config reporting delivered insights with little effort
Focus areas, simplifying
Qualtrics capabilities are often siloed in feature areas and have a lot of depth: Segments are a part of profiles and are limited to the data in that system. Surveys are incredibly robust, but Digital feedback tends to be more succinct. Reporting involves schematizing and joining datasets and then building metrics, widgets, and reports.
Bringing select capabilities closer together in a simplified format demonstrated not just how Digital could increase time to value but also how Qualtrics could
Intelligent onboarding and deployment
No config reporting
Integrated audience and digital segments
Industry benchmarked templates
Boiling the ocean
While well received, getting work prioritized from all the necessary teams proved challenging. It was too much to coordinate without teams meaningfully impacting their roadmaps.
Qualtrics Program Architecture
As I refined the Gateway concept and shared it with partner teams, development on Session Replay continued. In parallel, we started collecting feedback from early access users and then separately ran concept testing around potential new features. Signal was clear that customers wanted more digital tools in addition to improved ease of use.
I worked with Product and Eng leads to reset and develop a new concept with additional tools packaged inside Qualtrics frameworks.
Approach
- Develop persona focused scenario that solves major pain points and demonstrates functionality
- Reduce potential tools to a select group that solve key problems together
- Use Frameworks, but start to identify gaps where we would need to push for changes or added capabilities
The demo emphasized on how tools work together to move the user from a wide to a specific understanding of the data and how AI to uncover details worth investigating
Buy-in, challenges with frameworks
I presented this concept to executive leadership and key platform teams. We achieved enough buy-in that the team was given more headcount and direction to detail how to execute
Practically speaking, the architecture still posed issues for enabling analysis for users quickly and easily.
The Digital App
Performance and clarity between admin and analysis tasks
Moving from concept to development I did a deeper evaluation of the architecture. Qualtrics frameworks skew towards configuration tasks, so I looked at how different approaches may enable/inhibit traversal and its the impact on performance and user priorities.
Current state
Program model
New project type
Dashboard tools
Tool/Dashboard widget hybrid
App model
Using existing frameworks proved to be too much of a compromise technically and for user. Admin and analysis were easily blended impacting clarity. Qualtrics lack of expectation for frequently navigating horizontally meant we would be dependent on the performance of other teams (heavy) tool.
I developed an app concept the kept all the admin tasks in standard Qualtrics frameworks, but move all the analysis task into a self contained wrapper with bespoke navigation and contextual controls that could be shared across tools.
Tools, systems, and organization
With architecture settled, feature design accelerated and my role evolved. I continued own the design for Replays and Heatmaps and Architecture. As scope and complexity grew, the design team expanded. I onboarded new designers to lead Funnels, Path Analytics, Overview, and Settings/Qualtrics integration.
I aligned the team by setting up an collaborative insource model to manage our own platform and design system needs. Designers could then focus primarily on their features and the group could work through shared patterns like navigation, wayfiding and horizontal filtering.
Heatmaps (case study)
Replays
