Case Study 1 – Developing a Seller Dashboard at eBay

The Opportunity

All new global merchandising opportunities through eBay’s new Refurbished program. This program has become strategically important for future growth goals. It is vital that user experience be calibrated to people’s needs in order for the strategy to develop as planned.

All new participation requirements, KPIs, and more. As a new program with new operational requirements, participants need to meet strict performance guidelines for product quality, customer service excellence, and more.

Obstacles

Seller Problems

Crucial performance metrics for the new program were not accessible online. Performance tracking required guesswork and communication with client services representatives.

Program participants fretted that they were falling behind in performance while waiting for updated reports.

Stakeholder Challenges

Client issues and reporting bottlenecks were placing pressure on a fledgling program that needed to show growth

In particular there was an internal Reporting Challenge. This inneficient reporting process required client executives to extract data from from various internal systems and synthesize this into customized seller reports.

This is a sample Seller Report generated by a Client Executive team member. Drawn from multiple databases, this report took staff up to 2 hours to extract and up to 45 minutes for assemble and send.

Internal Client Executive Time Cost

~45 minutes per services employee for each client
1x monthly
On demand as clients requested

Program participation requires performance in these metrics!

Starting Point: Listen & Share

I started by hosting Refurbished Research standup meetings and a Slack channel dedicated to the project. These remained active until the project was completed.

The Standup and Slack Channel grew and provided a collaborative 360-degree discussion of challenges, discovery, and eventual solutions.

Excerpt from my weekly Slack updates to project members and executives.

These venues maintained a vibrant space for resource-sharing and program cohesion after de-prioritization.

Marketing joins the Refurb Standup. Our Refurbished Focus Pod crossed departmental lines to solve problems.

Developing the Research Plan

This Q4 2022-Q1 2023 research consisted of 18 participant interviews across 3 geographical regions where the Refurbished Program is being spearheaded: USA, Germany, and Great Britain.

These were remote 1:1 interviews and prototype reviews via UserZoom lasting approximately 45 minutes each.

Key Objectives

•Explore alternatives to inefficient reporting processes within client services.

•Evaluate the impact of current reporting on external customers, explore alternative reporting solutions.

My research would evaluate whether a previously proposed dashboard could meet reporting needs, and if so, how to optimize the dashboard design for users. This research would then guide executives on greenlighting the project, and the engineering and design teams that would create the product.

Key Findings: What do Users Want?

Internally

Client representatives seek to deliver regular metrics to Sellers while minimizing the time spent creating reports

Externally

Sellers seek data that is easily accessible and timely; interest in replacing email reports with a dashboard

Main Implication: I Can Recommend Building a Dashboard

Further Analysis for Dashboard Design: Integration of Policy & Metrics

To create the most effective reporting tool that would support the program for maximum impact, we collaboratively studies aspects to include on the basis of program requirements.

Further Challenges

Refurbished program had been deprioritized simultaneously with the research recommendation for a dashboard design.

This means funding was cut for future research and ongoing design!

However, the solution was already present in the collaborative research process: Resource sharing! Using resources shared in the standup and Slack meeting, enough funding and momentum was maintained to create impact.

The dashboard was created, iterated, and is in use today in a re-prioritized Refurbished program!

Screen capture from a collaborative design session. Resources were pooled to create a product, despite funding limitations.

Final Design Result

Dashboard developed to meet Seller needs and solve Client Services inefficiencies

A new dashboard was created for Refurbished program participants.

The final design avoided confusion and “dashboard overload” in the Seller Hub, while still delivering all the information named as “crucial” by internal and external partners.

Screenshot from German dashboard prototype

Outcomes

Dashboard created for ease of reporting, data is funneled, collated, and visualized for internal and external parties

Pioneering research for eBay in a newly emerging program space, of interest to teams across functions

Refurbished Teams group cohesion through persistence of research standup meeting. (And much happier stakeholders!)