Turning 40 charts into a morning briefing

The problem

Shelfwise gave retail chains 40 charts about their stores: sales, footfall, stock and staffing. Head office loved it. Store managers, the people meant to act on the numbers, logged in once a week and exported everything to a spreadsheet.

Research

I shadowed eight store managers through their opening hour. None of them had time to explore data. They had about five minutes, between unlocking the doors and the first delivery, to decide three things: what to restock, where to put people and what to fix.

“Don’t show me what happened. Tell me what to do about it.”

Design

We rebuilt the home screen as a morning briefing. Instead of charts, it opens with the three actions that matter most today, each one explained in a sentence and backed by the data behind it.

• A ranking model, built with the data scientist, that scores every possible action by its likely effect on the day’s sales.
• Charts moved one level down, into the explanation of each action, where they answer a question instead of asking one.
• Actions can be done, delegated or dismissed, and every choice teaches the ranking what matters in that store.

Outcome

Managers went from login to their first decision four times faster. Daily use tripled, trial-to-paid conversion rose by 24%, and requests for spreadsheet exports dropped to almost none.