Alteryx
Machine Learning and Predictive Analytics Tool
Mar-Apr 2020
UX Lead: Senior Designer
As one of two Lead Senior UX Designers on this project, my biggest UX task was to determine the strongest layout and cadence of information that would accommodate two very different user types. While Alteryx was planning to market this tool toward data novices, they also required that it be useful to their existing user base made primarily of data scientists.
Democratizing Data Science
Learning about data science for the first time can feel much like learning an entirely new language; to become fully fluent would take years of practice and, in the beginning, everything feels foreign. The goal with Alteryx Machine Learning was to lower the barrier to entry and curate a sense of familiarity for even the most complex of topics.
The first step in simplification was to synthesize the complex process of building a model into simple steps and common terms. While there was a ton of work going on under the hood, it became abundantly clear that shielding users from that by default would speed up their workflow and leave room for growth as they got more comfortable and curious.
Finding Balance
Properly balancing the needs of experts and novices started with clarifying required action points from optional exploratory pathways. I proposed a 1/3, 2/3 layout that strictly separated input from output.
For those newer to the process, the left hand sidebar stood as the dedicated home to make selections, while the right-hand canvas provided a consistent landscape to explore the outputs from those selections, giving context to each decision but still holding space for more advanced users to take deeper dives.
Breathing Life Into Data
To be a true competitor in the market, Alteryx also wanted this tool to provide users with immediate insights on their data, but what's worse than having a taste of an insight without being able to pull the thread through?
I designed each output to be fully interactive so that interested users could always have an opportunity to explore the world of possibilities Alteryx was uncovering for them without ever having to leave the platform.
