Eugenio Tamburini - Portfolio

EUGENIO TAMBURINI

PRODUCT DESIGNER

CONTACT

Universe Reports. A unified solution with deeper flexibility.

I collaborated closely with my design, PM and engineering teams to redesign a unified suite that slowed client churn, rebuilt trust with users, and won new business by empowering users to decide what data mattered most.

60% Adoption

Over legacy reporting, allowing us to sunset unused pages and reduce maintenance costs.

40% of Reports Shared

Users were spending less time on workaround or external solutions when using new report customizations.

Scalable Foundation

Sunsetting unnecessary pages ensured the business could invested in the right solutions.

Client Satisfaction

When interviewing clients during user testing and post-release.

Role

Lead Product Designer.
Assisted by 3 others.

What I owned

Identifying the problem, outlining design strategy, leading usability testing, hands-on building, release, and validated future iterations.

Team

Product Manager.
3 Frontend Developers.
2 Data Engineers.

Skills

End-to-end product design.
Design debt mitigation.
Hands-on shipping.

Solution

Problem

Research

Decisions

Testing

Future

Takeaways

Solution

Users get at-a-glance information from dashboards, then dig deeper, export and schedule with reports.

Most users already began their journey in their account dashboard. We made it easier to get actionable insights from the get-go. When they needed to dig deeper and compare different metrics, they could easily transition to their account reports.

The dashboard Overview showed sales data. Trends focused on patterns. Sources displayed affiliate and payment data. BoxOffice was all about attendance.

Account reports were expanded with deeper flexibility, removing the overreliance on one-off templates.

PROBLEM

High-value enterprise clients were leaving Universe because reporting did not meet their business needs.

They didn’t trust the numbers, found workflows difficult to navigate, couldn’t find the answers they needed, and Universe attempted to solve the problem with one-off templates that compounded pain points.

How could we design an accurate, performant, scalable, and flexible reporting solution that made sticking with Universe the best choice for their business?

Users felt most confident at the start of their reporting journey (the Audit phase), but quickly lost trust as they sought specific answers (Depth) and required sharing with stakeholders (Leverage). I chose to focus on the depth and leverage phase as the critical moment to build trust with our users.

Stakeholder Management

Every stakeholder prioritized something different. I was responsible for finding the connective thread between them. By auditing user flows, shadowing users, and facilitating interviews, I learned that what everyone depended on was certainty. They wanted to trust the numbers, easily get to what they needed, and manipulate data as they liked.

beFORE

When I started, the data presented in dashboards was limited, reports were rigid and overwhelming, and custom options existed independently of major workflows.

This forced users to jump between different pages to find the answers they were looking for, and often met a system that was inconsistent not just in the data provided but also in design and user experience.

Account dashboards suffered from shallow and ambiguous metrics, limited filtering options, poor accessibility, and extremely low usage.
Event dashboards inherited the same issues as account dashboards, compounded by the fact that they weren’t fully aligned with our design system.
Account and event reports offered many of the same templates, but they often led to different outcomes. Filtering was extremely limited, forcing workarounds.
Custom reports had much of the flexibility our users needed, but they were locked behind admin permissions and built on outdated frameworks.
Account dashboards suffered from shallow and ambiguous metrics, limited filtering options, poor accessibility, and extremely low usage.
Event dashboards inherited the same issues as account dashboards, compounded by the fact that they weren’t fully aligned with our design system.
Account and event reports offered many of the same templates, but they often led to different outcomes. Filtering was extremely limited, forcing workarounds.
Custom reports had much of the flexibility our users needed, but they were locked behind admin permissions and built on outdated frameworks.
Account dashboards suffered from shallow and ambiguous metrics, limited filtering options, poor accessibility, and extremely low usage.
Event dashboards inherited the same issues as account dashboards, compounded by the fact that they weren’t fully aligned with our design system.
Account and event reports offered many of the same templates, but they often led to different outcomes. Filtering was extremely limited, forcing workarounds.
Custom reports had much of the flexibility our users needed, but they were locked behind admin permissions and built on outdated frameworks.
Account dashboards suffered from shallow and ambiguous metrics, limited filtering options, poor accessibility, and extremely low usage.
Event dashboards inherited the same issues as account dashboards, compounded by the fact that they weren’t fully aligned with our design system.
Account and event reports offered many of the same templates, but they often led to different outcomes. Filtering was extremely limited, forcing workarounds.
Custom reports had much of the flexibility our users needed, but they were locked behind admin permissions and built on outdated frameworks.

Account dashboards suffered from shallow and ambiguous metrics, limited filtering options, and poor accessibility.
Event dashboards were more limited than account dashboards, made worse by design inconsistencies.
Account and event reports offered many of the same templates, but they often led to different outcomes and filtering was limited.
Custom reports had much of the flexibility our users needed, but they were locked behind admin permissions and built on outdated frameworks.
Account dashboards suffered from shallow and ambiguous metrics, limited filtering options, and poor accessibility.
Event dashboards were more limited than account dashboards, made worse by design inconsistencies.
Account and event reports offered many of the same templates, but they often led to different outcomes and filtering was limited.
Custom reports had much of the flexibility our users needed, but they were locked behind admin permissions and built on outdated frameworks.
Account dashboards suffered from shallow and ambiguous metrics, limited filtering options, and poor accessibility.
Event dashboards were more limited than account dashboards, made worse by design inconsistencies.
Account and event reports offered many of the same templates, but they often led to different outcomes and filtering was limited.
Custom reports had much of the flexibility our users needed, but they were locked behind admin permissions and built on outdated frameworks.
Account dashboards suffered from shallow and ambiguous metrics, limited filtering options, and poor accessibility.
Event dashboards were more limited than account dashboards, made worse by design inconsistencies.
Account and event reports offered many of the same templates, but they often led to different outcomes and filtering was limited.
Custom reports had much of the flexibility our users needed, but they were locked behind admin permissions and built on outdated frameworks.

Account dashboards suffered from shallow and ambiguous metrics, limited filtering options, poor accessibility, and extremely low usage.
Event dashboards inherited the same issues as account dashboards, compounded by the fact that they weren’t fully aligned with our design system.
Account and event reports offered many of the same templates, but they often led to different outcomes and filter was extremely limited.
Custom reports had much of the flexibility our users needed, but they were locked behind admin permissions and built on outdated frameworks.
Account dashboards suffered from shallow and ambiguous metrics, limited filtering options, poor accessibility, and extremely low usage.
Event dashboards inherited the same issues as account dashboards, compounded by the fact that they weren’t fully aligned with our design system.
Account and event reports offered many of the same templates, but they often led to different outcomes and filter was extremely limited.
Custom reports had much of the flexibility our users needed, but they were locked behind admin permissions and built on outdated frameworks.
Account dashboards suffered from shallow and ambiguous metrics, limited filtering options, poor accessibility, and extremely low usage.
Event dashboards inherited the same issues as account dashboards, compounded by the fact that they weren’t fully aligned with our design system.
Account and event reports offered many of the same templates, but they often led to different outcomes and filter was extremely limited.
Custom reports had much of the flexibility our users needed, but they were locked behind admin permissions and built on outdated frameworks.
Account dashboards suffered from shallow and ambiguous metrics, limited filtering options, poor accessibility, and extremely low usage.
Event dashboards inherited the same issues as account dashboards, compounded by the fact that they weren’t fully aligned with our design system.
Account and event reports offered many of the same templates, but they often led to different outcomes and filter was extremely limited.
Custom reports had much of the flexibility our users needed, but they were locked behind admin permissions and built on outdated frameworks.

Research

Too many underutilized pages, the numbers were different between them, performance suffered, and the user experience forced frustrating workarounds.

To mitigate these issues, the business invested years and money into building band-aid solutions, such as bespoke reporting templates for each client, but all of them failed to solve the real problem: Universe was spread thin, and it was affecting our users.

Mapping out all of the feedback we received helped me understand the real problem: disjointed user flows and lack of clarity.

Lack of clarity was caused by 5 different pages with overlapping functionality but inconsistent design, data, and verbiage.

By sunsetting redundant flows and adding depth to dashboards and account reports, we could focus improvements rather than spread ourselves thin.

Challenge

Convincing the business to sunset multiple flows they had invested years into required a clear strategy and proof that it would work.

Solution

Start with dashboards. Use them as a pilot. If dashboards moved the needle, it would be easier to invest into account reports and beyond.

Design decisions

Consolidating pages meant focusing data. It meant users could trust the platform again. Starting with dashboards would validate our approach with the business.

I started with account dashboards because it’s where over 60% of our users started their reporting journey. It was also the most outdated portion of Universe reports, as they still reflected a time when Universe was focused on providing a platform for small-to-mid sized events.

Trade-off

As one piece of a larger reporting overhaul, dashboards would only get 3 months to release. My PM, dev lead and I agreed that leveraging a reporting integration to get us started quicker was the way to go. We chose Apache Superset, optimizing for faster building and shipping over having complete ownership and transparency.

Video shows an early but functional version of our dashboards, used for beta testing with real clients.

Challenge

Superset was difficult to design for. This meant we couldn’t get it 100% aligned with our design system.

Solution

I jumped into our staging environment to work side-by-side with my dev team, getting the most out of the platform despite constraints.

A few design decision highlights.
(1) Making sure our dashboards were not just feature rich but also accessible. (2) Iterating on metric selection for account reports based on user testing feedback. (3) Translating Superset components to our design system.

User testing

80% Testers

Preferred filters to be visible and expected them at the top of the page, not hidden behind a click.

Missing Demographic Data

Many of our clients asked for more sophisticated demographic reporting. We’d address it in the future.

Performance Issues

Superset was not consistent in its performance for all users. Improving the data pipeline became a priority.

+17% Approval Rating over Legacy Dashboards

Overall, our new dashboards were preferred over what came before, but there was still work to be done.

Stakeholder Management

Executive teams were divided but saw the potential in dashboards. Another 6 months would be dedicated to monitoring user feedback and improving performance. I took what I learned from dashboards and brought it to account report iterations.

Future

Unifying account dashboards with reports into one seamless workflow.

A future version included a seamless flow between dashboards and reports. This approach was tested internally and roadmapped, but I left Universe before release.

TAKEAWAYS

Sometimes you have the “perfect” hypothetical solution, but execution may not go as planned. Products are also never really one-and-done.

At the time, I thought I covered all of my bases. I worked closely with stakeholders, designed with devs and PMs in the room, and tried to find a balance between fast delivery of an MVP without sacrificing craft.

But when I look back, I see opportunities to have done things better. The biggest thing I would do differently is learn more about the technology we are using. For example, I could have assessed Superset in more detail to find critical constraints.

After this project, I made a commitment to understand projects holistically - front-facing, backend, and beyond - to the best of my ability.

Next up

Snapshots

LEARN MORE