How I transformed a static dashboard
into a flexible data playground (that profits!)
During my time as the Founding Designer at Avnet, I led a strategic design shift of our supply chain platform, Proscal, transforming it from a free Power BI host into a scalable, revenue-generating SaaS product with features comprehensive enough to support a tiered pricing model.
This case study walks through one of the key 0→1 features I designed and launched that empowered analysts to make data-driven decisions with greater flexibility and confidence.
Role
Founding UX Designer
Timeline
Launched in 3 months
Keywords
#SaaS, #0 to 1, #Strategic
Impact
During my time with Proscal, the design improvements led to a significant increase in user engagement. The platform began attracting more enterprise customers across EMEA and APAC, with potential to generate up to 3% of their annual spend as recurring revenue. These outcomes reflect a successful shift from passive data extraction to active in-platform analysis.
150%↑
Average session duration
92%
Satisfaction rate
20+
Global enterprise customers
3%↑
Recurring revenue potential
Context
Proscal is a dashboard + analytical features supply chain platform that could unlock new revenue in a tough market
The platform began as a free service add-on built on customers' requests. Supply chain analysts would select dashboards and features they wanted and track performance. However, as competitors began monetizing similar platforms in a tough market, our market share was at risk. We saw the opportunity to turn Proscal into a revenue-generating product, helping Avnet stay competitive and create a new revenue stream.
The Problem
High stickiness but low engagement:
Users weren't convinced the platform was worth paying for
Although 45.2% of MAU use the product on any given day, they were not actively engaging with it. Average engagement time per user is less than 5min, and most users only visited 20% of the dashboard pages. Users left the platform to do their work. The experience fell short of what users would expect from a paid product.
Why It Happened
The root causes of low engagement
From Vision to Action
What if users can create their own dashboards and share it with others?
As the team set "proactive intelligence" as our vision, I gathered feature ideas and built up a product roadmap balancing user value and engineering feasibility. The idea of a data "Playground" became our first step.
Design Experiments
Prototyping, testing, and more
Final Design
Playground: A dynamic space to
build, customize, and share data visualizations
Creating a fully customized dashboard with ease
Playground lets users follow familiar Excel-like steps to explore data visually by picking a chart type then plotting the data. It lowers the learning curve and empowers users to illustrate what they need.
Collaborate with consistency
Once users build charts, they can turn it into a shareable dashboard and send it to teammates. This promotes transparency, reduces duplicated work, and keeps everyone aligned.
Two-level filtering for flexible analysis
There are page-level filters that apply across all charts, and individual chart filters for more granular analysis. This structure allows analysts to view trends while still enabling deep dives into specific datasets, reducing time spent on repetitive filtering.
Dynamic and Responsive Grid
To balance user flexibility with development feasibility, we introduced a default responsive grid system. Each row can fit up to 4 KPI cards, 2 visualization components, and 1 data table.
Start Fast with Dashboard Templates (Future iteration)
During MVP testing, I uncovered a common use case: analysts frequently used this feature to create quarterly business reports, which often followed a consistent visual structure. Inspired by tools like Notion, I designed a phase 2 update that provides pre-designed dashboard templates to help users skip the setup and focus on insights.
Results
Driving user engagement and platform value
High satisfaction, high engagement
After launching the MVP to 3 customers and testing with 89 users, the majority agreed that the feature effectively addressed dashboard limitations and streamlined their workflows.
150%
average session duration
increase for adopters
92%
Satisfaction rate
among early adopters
7/10
Value score
of willingness-to-pay
2
dashboards created
per user per week
Creating potential revenue stream
This feature marks the first step in our strategic transformation from a passive dashboard service to a standardized, revenue-generating analytics platform. It lowered the internal operational effort, and brought a positive revenue forecast.
70%
less support tickets
related to dashboard customization
3-5%
incremental revenue increase
once fully launch with upcoming premium offering
Reflection
What users want ≠ need:
We needed to break out of the reactive pattern
Through a series of research and user feedback, we realized that simply “building what they requested” was not enough to create a product worth paying for. The team needed a strategic shift to set the direction for the next stage of development and actively expand feature offerings.
From executer to initiator
Leading this project allowed me to step beyond executing assigned tasks and take ownership of the product vision. I drove research, synthesized insights, and translated them into strategic design decisions that balanced user needs, business goals, and technical feasibility. These requirements encouraged me to think critically about prioritizing the product roadmap and to constantly evaluate which new features would deliver the most value without overextending the team and the timeline.
