Background
Equity Quotient is an AI-powered stakeholder intelligence platform that helps companies and organizations better understand their suppliers, customers, employees, and community. Surfacing detailed analytics around socioeconomuc factors to automate compliance, manage risk, and accelerate strategic planning with specific focus on demographic alignment
I joined EQ initially as a product and UX designer, to help them overcome a hurdle of making their data analytics platform consumable while retaining functionality and creating room for growth. Initial versions of the design, while beautiful, lacked in that users simply did not understand or know how to use the data.
Role
Initially as part of a small team to execute an improved and scalable vision of the main analytics platform, and over time adding product strategy and product management to deliver a flexible but focused solution for customers.
Guiding Principles
A very specific but flexible set of guiding principles allows the company to focus on specific problems but provide to a wider set at scale. Amongst the set of principles:
- Tell the Story: data must tell a story
- Simplicity: err on the side of the most easily comprehensible solution.
- Necessity: will the absence cause difficulty, does its inclusion help tell the story.
- Situational Alternatives: guardrails and constraints have to be considered.
- Consistency: recurring themes and solutions aide in learning and understanding.
- Widgets: a basic unit of output can tell a story and be part of a wider narrative.
- Data First: remove obstructions to the foundational element – the data. Be honest in its intent and clear in it presentation.
Design Patterns
Data is a complex fabric. Using consistent, well defined patterns of output can make a story obvious or make it confusing. The design of a dashboard is not to be taken lightly. Much like a book, a single dashboard can tell a story, but with increased availability, so too can a story become muddled. From the get-go, the team sought to develop outputs that make the story clear and consistent, to move away from the shiny object approach and use themes – color, visual layouts, and so on – to bring the plot to the surface.
Outcomes
Equity Quotient officially launches the second week of September, 2023. Through it’s development, EQ has conferred closely with dozens of potential clients, development partners, and interested parties taking part in providing insight to specific needs.