Experian Insights
Insights
Experian is a global leader in credit reporting and marketing services. I spent nearly two years designing software to help protect consumers and businesses from fraud and identity theft, working across two key products – PowerCurve Insights and Experian One.
The main project was taking BI Reporting – an outdated internal analytics tool that nobody particularly enjoyed using – and turning it into something modern and intuitive.
Eventually it got rebranded as Insights. The tool was buried in clunky navigation, full of static reports you couldn’t interact with, and used daily by strategy designers, analysts and data scientists who needed to get to information fast.
My role
I was on this project for the full two years I was at Experian. I ran user research, built prototypes, mapped journeys and worked closely with product and engineering throughout.
It wasn’t a quick fix – the scope covered navigation, report library, dashboard customisation, landing page, open report experience and contributions to the design system. The UX patterns I landed on for the report navigation ended up informing how the wider platform worked too.
Research:
User testing and Tree jack task
As the design evolved and a navigation menu became necessary, I ran a tree jack exercise – asking users to organise and group links based on what they actually needed day to day.
It quickly became clear that nesting everything in the navigation wasn’t going to work.
Some users had over 50 folders with more than 100 reports each. Putting all of that in a nav would have broken it entirely.
Better to get users to a dedicated search area instead.
Research:
User testing
I built prototypes and put them in front of users – asking targeted questions and listening to what frustrated users about the existing tool. The findings weren’t subtle:
Empty folders with no visual indication
Folders looked full whether they had anything in them or not. Users would click in, wait for the page to load and get a “This folder is empty” message. Then navigate back and try again. Over and over.
No way to search
Users had to remember where a report lived and navigate to it manually every time. No search. No shortcuts. Just memory and a folder structure that gave nothing away.
Most people asked for a favourites feature so they could at least pin the reports they used constantly.
Reports you couldn’t do anything with
Everything was a static PDF. You couldn’t hover over a data point, filter by a date range or drill into a specific figure. For a tool built around data insight, that was a significant problem.
Research:
Journey flows
To frame the scale of the problem I mapped out the current navigation journey against a proposed new one.
Current flow
Click count:
Between 6-8+ clicks
Log into Experian One, land on the dashboard, open Insights, get presented with a folder structure that tells you nothing about what’s inside.
Click a folder. Wait. Empty. Go back. Try another one. Eventually find a report, open it, close it, repeat the whole thing to find the next one.
Proposed flow
Click count:
4 clicks
Log in, open Insights, land on a page that shows report groupings with reports visible underneath. No folders to click into. No dead ends. The folder concept was removed entirely.
Four clicks instead of eight doesn’t sound like much – but the real improvement was cutting out the loop of empty folders completely. Users could see where everything lived the moment they landed.
Key challenges:
Getting to a report took too long and too many wrong turns
Challenge
The folder structure was slow, confusing and gave users no way to tell what was worth clicking into.
Switching between reports meant going back to the library every time.
Solution
I removed the folder concept entirely and surfaced reports directly within their groupings.
Users could switch between reports in the same section in a click or two, and jump to other sections without losing their place.
Thumbnails gave a visual preview of each report so users could identify what they needed at a glance.
Key challenges:
No customisation or personalisation
Challenge
Reports were static and fixed.
Users couldn’t build dashboards, save the reports they used regularly or filter data to what actually mattered to them.
Solution
I designed a customisable dashboard where users could build and organise their own reports. Favouriting and saving gave quick access to the regulars.
Experian adopted Tableau separately – that was a tech decision, not mine – but it transformed reports from static PDFs into something users could actually interact with.
Key challenges:
Insights felt disconnected from Experian One
Challenge
The original tool felt bolted on rather than part of the platform. And with up to 100 categories possible per user, there was a real risk of the Experian One dashboard becoming unusable.
Solution
I looked at two options for integrating Insights into the dashboard.
One created a dedicated section to centralise everything. The other used additional paging after the app was selected. Once I found out users could have up to 100 categories, Option 2 was off the table. Option 1 kept things clean.
Option 1
Option 2
Phase 1 – Wireframes:
Report library
Rather than trying to fix the tree navigation, I replaced it.
An accordion-style component showed all reports openly within their groupings – no clicking required to see what was there. A tab at the top let users filter down to specific sections quickly.
Phase 1 – Wireframes:
Open report
Selecting a report opened it directly. Related reports in the same grouping sat in a scrollable panel on the left – one or two clicks to switch between them without reloading the entire library.
The accordion opened to show what was available in each section.
Final design:
Navigation
The tree jack results pointed clearly to two sections:
One for viewing and exploring, one for creating and scheduling. I called them Discover and Workspace.
I put Workspace at the top initially – seemed logical – but testing showed users spent most of their time viewing rather than creating, so Discover moved to the top.
Final design:
Landing page
As the product started gaining traction internally, BI Reporting got renamed to Insights. More memorable, more descriptive of what it actually did. A dedicated landing page gave it a proper home within Experian One rather than feeling like an afterthought.
Early reactions were good – users found it easy to set up, much easier to navigate than what came before, and they liked being able to save and favourite reports.
Phase 1 – Final design:
Report library
With Tableau in place, the library could finally take advantage of interactive reports rather than static images.
Thumbnails, tabs, filtering and favouriting gave users proper control over how they found and organised content.
Phase 1 results:
User testing
The users
I ran another round of testing once the Phase 1 designs were done. The feedback was pretty clear:
Users also flagged things for the next phase – filtering and sorting by date and customer type, the ability to manage their own reports rather than going through admin, more personalisation in the library.
All of that fed into the Phase 2 roadmap.
Phase 1 – Final design:
Open report
The scrollable panel on the left meant users could move between reports without constantly going back to the library.
Select a report, it loads in the main area. Switch to another in the same section – one click. The accordion kept it organised without hiding anything.
Phase 2:
Coming soon
Phase 2 built on everything Phase 1 established – adding permission-based profiles (Superuser, Edit and View-only), a community area for commenting and sharing, and scheduling within the report view.
Insights
Experian is a global leader in credit reporting and marketing services. I spent nearly two years designing software to help protect consumers and businesses from fraud and identity theft, working across two key products – PowerCurve Insights and Experian One.
The primary project was transforming BI Reporting, an outdated internal analytics tool, into a modern, intuitive platform – eventually rebranded as Insights.
The challenge was significant: a tool buried in clunky navigation, static reports and no customisation, used daily by strategy designers, analysts and data scientists who needed fast access to complex data.
My role
I was the UX/UI designer on the project for the full duration of my time at Experian – nearly two years. I conducted user research and studies to understand what users needed, turning findings into personas, user journeys and design solutions.
I worked closely with Product Management and Engineering teams throughout, sharing research findings and iterating on designs to ensure the solutions were both technically viable and genuinely useful.
The scope covered navigation redesign, report library, dashboard customisation, landing page, open report experience and design system contribution.
Research:
User testing and Tree jack task
As the initial design evolved and a navigation menu became necessary, I ran a tree jack exercise with users – asking them to organise and group navigation links based on what they found most useful for their daily workflows. This helped identify common patterns and priorities, and directly informed the navigation structure.
A critical finding emerged early: given that some users had over 50 folders with more than 100 reports each, nesting everything within the navigation would overwhelm it entirely. The better solution was to guide users to a dedicated area where they could search for what they needed.
Research:
User testing
After designs were approved I built interactive prototypes and put them in front of users – asking targeted questions about specific areas of the interface and gathering feedback on what worked and what they’d change.
Key findings from testing the existing BI Reporting tool included:
Empty folders with no visual indication
The lack of a dynamic folder structure meant folders appeared full even when empty.
Users would click into a folder, wait for it to load, and be greeted with a “This folder is empty” message – then have to navigate back and start over. With no way of knowing which folders contained reports, users found themselves stuck in a loop.
No search functionality
Users had no way to search for reports. They relied entirely on memory to remember where a report was stored and navigate to it manually through the tree structure – slow and frustrating, particularly for those managing large numbers of reports.
Many users requested a favourites feature for quick access to reports they used regularly.
Static, non-interactive reports
Reports were static PDF visuals that couldn’t be edited or interacted with.
Users couldn’t hover over data points, filter by specific criteria or view exact figures within graphs – limiting their usefulness significantly.
Research:
Journey flows
To frame the scale of the problem I mapped out the current navigation journey against a proposed new one.
Current flow
Click count: Between 6-8+
Users sign into Experian One, land on the dashboard, select Insights and are presented with a folder structure that gives no indication of which folders contain reports.
They click a folder, wait for it to load, potentially hit an empty folder message, navigate back and start again.
If they find a report, they open it, close it and repeat the whole process to find the next one.
Proposed flow
Click count: 4
Users sign into Experian One, land on the dashboard, select Insights and are immediately presented with a homepage showing report groupings with reports visible underneath – no folders to click into, no empty dead ends.
The concept of hidden folders was removed entirely.
While the reduction from 6-8 clicks to 4 may not sound dramatic, the real gain was eliminating the frustration of cycling through empty folders entirely.
Users now had a clear picture of where everything lived from the moment they landed.
Key challenges:
Clunky, inefficient report navigation
Challenge
Reports were buried within a tree-structured folder list.
The process was slow, cumbersome and made it nearly impossible to switch between reports quickly.
Empty folders added confusion and wasted time.
Solution
I designed a new navigation system that removed the folder concept entirely, surfacing reports directly within their groupings.
Users could seamlessly switch between reports in the same section and easily explore other sections without navigating back to a separate library screen.
Thumbnails were introduced to give users a visual preview of each report for quicker identification.
Key challenges:
No customisation or personalisation
Challenge
Reports were static and fixed.
Users couldn’t build their own dashboards, filter data to their needs or save reports they used regularly.
Solution
I designed a fully customisable dashboard experience allowing users to build and organise their own reports based on how they actually worked.
Favouriting and saving reports gave users quick access to what they needed daily.
Experian’s adoption of Tableau (a separate technology decision) transformed the reports from static PDFs into interactive tools, allowing users to hover over data points and view exact figures.
Key challenges:
Insights needed to feel part of Experian One
Challenge
The original BI Reporting tool felt disconnected from the wider Experian One platform.
With the potential for up to 100 categories, there was also a real risk of overwhelming the Experian One dashboard.
Solution
I explored two options for integrating Insights into the Experian One dashboard.
Option 1 created a dedicated section on the dashboard to centralise all reports and categories.
Option 2 used additional paging after the application was selected. After discovering users could have up to 100 categories (which would have made Option 2 completely unusable) Option 1 was the clear choice, keeping the dashboard clean and manageable.
Option 1
Option 2
Phase 1 – Wireframes:
Report library
Rather than refining the existing tree navigation, I replaced it entirely with an accordion-style component that displayed all reports openly within their groupings.
This made it immediately clear which sections contained reports without requiring any clicking. A tab at the top of the page allowed users to filter down to specific sections quickly.
Phase 1 – Wireframes:
Open report
When a report was selected from the library it opened directly, with related reports in the same grouping displayed in a scrollable panel on the left.
Users could switch between reports in the same section in one or two clicks – no need to navigate back to the library and reload the entire page. The accordion panel opened to reveal available reports within each section.
Final design:
Navigation
After reviewing all tree jack findings, the navigation was divided into two clear sections:
Discover for viewing and exploring content, and Workspace for creating and scheduling.
Initially I placed Workspace at the top, but testing revealed that users’ primary use case was viewing rather than creating, so Discover was moved to the top to better reflect real usage patterns.
Final design:
Landing page
As the product gained traction internally, BI Reporting was renamed Insights – a name that better reflected its purpose of surfacing valuable, actionable data.
A dedicated landing page was designed for users to arrive at after logging in, giving the product its own identity within the Experian One ecosystem.
Early feedback on the new direction was encouraging – users found it intuitive and easy to set up, far easier to navigate than the old platform, and they responded positively to the ability to save and favourite reports.
Phase 1 – Final design:
Report library
With Tableau now powering the reports, the library design took full advantage of the shift from static PDFs to interactive tools.
Thumbnails gave users an instant visual preview of each report. Tabs, filtering and favouriting gave users control over how they navigated and organised their content.
Phase 1 results:
User testing
The users
After completing the Phase 1 designs I ran another round of user testing with interactive prototypes. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive:
Users also highlighted areas for future development – filtering and sorting by date, customer type and date ranges; the ability to remove reports from their own dashboards; and more personalisation options for the report library.
These fed directly into the Phase 2 roadmap.
Phase 1 – Final design:
Open report
The open report experience reduced the need to constantly navigate back and forth between the report library.
A scrollable panel housed reports within their sections, with the accordion opening to reveal available reports.
Selecting a report loaded it in the main area immediately – switching to another report in the same section took one or two clicks.
Phase 2:
Coming soon
Phase 2 built on the Phase 1 foundations, introducing further customisation, personalisation and community features including permission-based profiles – Superuser, Edit and View-only – and a community area for commenting, sharing and scheduling within the report view.
