How might we create an easy way for newsletter writers to know how well their subscribers receive their publications?

Use industry standards to create a first draft

I started my design process by creating a dashboard that presents user feedback as graphs and tables. My team decided that this was the best way to present information because everything could be reviewed and analyzed in one place. The dashboard includes graphs showing the percentages of people who reported that the newsletter was great, good, or bad, and a list of written survey responses, broken down question by question.

Interview newsletter writers to understand their pain points

I conducted 6 interviews with current newsletter writers to ask about their experiences collecting feedback from their subscribers. One thing I found is that they don’t have a standard process for collecting feedback, so users often reply to the email with their feedback. This results in extremely long email chains, lost information, and cluttered inboxes. This lack of organization prevents writers from comparing feedback over time, so they have no idea whether they’re properly implementing the feedback they receive or whether their reader satisfaction is increasing.

Implement feedback from users

After the feedback we received from our interviews, I introduced a timeline filter on the dashboard so users can compare feedback across different time periods and better understand changes in their performance over time.

At this time, I also worked with my technical and business team to create a visual identity for our brand.

Below is the final dashboard design.

Reflections

After a few years of additional education and experience, I would make four revisions to this design if I were to pick it up again.

1. Color Contrast: The white text on the light blue background, especially in the header, is extremely hard to read and is a huge accessibility concern.

2. Spacing: There is a lot of underutilized space in the dashboard that causes a lot more scrolling than is necessary.

3. Search Feature: In our interviews, loss of information was a major concern for writers. I would add a search feature so they can find specific points or topics.

4. Visually Cluttered: As a young designer, I was very excited for the opportunity to play around with the UI and visual identity of the brand. I can now see that there are too many elements in the visual design, which distract from the dashboard content.