Reporting

After nine years of designing enterprise software, one lesson stands out: there will always be an "important customer" request that pressures product teams to drop everything. The natural instinct—driven by the urgency to deliver quickly and the fear of losing the customer—is often to build exactly what’s requested without questioning its broader relevance.

In this case, the customer had a valid concern. The product was still in its early stages, and without a key feature like reporting, no team managing Identity and Access Management (IAM) could function effectively. However, their reporting requests were highly specific and clearly not aligned with the broader needs of other customers. Despite this, the engineering team was ready to build exactly what was asked for when I was brought in.

At the time, I was still early in my design career and a bit reserved. But I knew my role was to understand the root problem before jumping into solutions. I convinced the product team to give me and the design researcher a few days to speak with the customer and other stakeholders to uncover what they truly needed—and why. This extra step proved critical to our success, ensuring we delivered a solution that met both the customer’s needs and the broader product vision.

1. While the requirements specified what data was needed, the team lacked clarity on why customers needed it or how they would use it.
2. The design had to be completed within a single sprint to avoid delaying development or losing the sale.
3. The engineering team initially undervalued the role of design, seeing it as a potential bottleneck.
4. Early designs needed to work within technical constraints while planning for future improvements.
5. Initial designs, though functional, fell short of customer expectations, requiring quick pivots and redesigns.

1. Partnered with a design researcher to understand customer reporting needs and identify broader use cases across the product.
2. Designed and iterated on multiple prototypes, evolving from basic wireframes to an enhanced dashboard, comprehensive reports landing page, and detailed  activity reports.
3. Led reporting demo sessions with customers, incorporating feedback to continuously refine and improve the reporting experience.
4. Collaborated closely with engineers and PMs to align user needs with development constraints, ensuring practical, user-centered solutions.
5. Addressed initial skepticism about design's role by demonstrating the impact of UX research and iterative design on product success.
6. Created and documented a reusable reporting pattern that continues to be used six years later, providing essential visibility for effective identity and access management across organizations.

1. Restored customer confidence in our product, leading to renewed commitments and increased investment from multiple clients.
2. 15% improvement in NPS score and $3 million in cost recovery.
3. Forrester representative noted the superior user experience compared to competitors, enhancing IBM's reputation.
4. IBM Security leaders highlighted the project's success as a model for collaboration between design and development.

“With the designs of the developer portal, reporting, and token management, Shelley contributed greatly to the [Verify] platform. And through demonstration of future development efforts that

provided value to [a customer], gained their confidence in the platform and ultimately allowed for the customer to not only remain with IBM, but also continue to expand their investment with additional user licenses. Delivering reporting enhancements directly provided confidence to [another customer] to select IBM [Verify] as their chosen IDaaS. Without this capability, it would have resulted in the [customer] not choosing [Verify] ...This provided IBM [Verify] with over $3 million in cost recovery for the product. Through the design review sessions with customers, she

provides a collaborative atmosphere with development which increased the efficiency of development time to market.”

– J. Rodriguez, Chief Product Architect, IBM Security