Optimizing the way Charts are created and used in the Newsroom

Background

Dow Jones and its subsidiary newsrooms such as Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, Barrons, Mansion Global, etc all utilize a suite of internal publishing applications called Newsroom Tools. I lead the design on three of these tools, Chartlos, Image Manager, & Live Coverage, as well as collaborate with my manager to work on suite-wide initiatives.

One of the tools, Chartlos, is a data visualization tool that the different newsrooms use to communicate different datasets to either support or feature in their stories. After taking over its design, I conducted a research initiative in order to get to know our users, and understand how we can further optimize their data visualization creation experience.

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Getting to know our users

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Optimizing the Data Visualization Creation process

Problem

The current Chartlos experience causes users to have a plethora of frustrations. On one side users need more functionality to create advanced visualization, while on the other side users need more simplicity throughout the tool to quickly create the charts they desire.

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Goal

Cohesively utilize findings from our research to optimize the chartlos experience for the wide sectrum of users and use cases across newsrooms.

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Layout & User Flow

Problem

Today, users take a frustatingly long amount of time due to:‍

1. How the different chart width sizes 4U -> 16U are laid out vertically in different windows
2. The way the navigation is set up to progress downwards vertically and upon up a sliding menu
3. The difficulty with discoverability of the features they're looking to use

Goal

To simplify the overall flow of Chartlos making it easier for users to progress linearly and focus on the charting experience.

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