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HubSpot’s App Partners lacked visibility into key metrics, leaving them unable to track how their apps and listings were performing. They didn’t have access to vital data like monthly installs and uninstalls which made it difficult for them to optimize their listings and improve discoverability. This lack of insight meant app listings often remained stagnant and outdated, reducing their chances of conversion and install.
Many listings went unchanged after their initial publication, further contributing to an outdated and incomplete App Marketplace.
This issue had been a long-standing request from App Partners, and with the priority goal of driving discovery and activation of integrations in 2024, it was essential to address this gap. Ensuring that app listings were up-to-date and providing Partners with the performance data they needed would not only have enhanced the app discovery process for customers but also improved install rates for Partners.
This is the extent of what the dashboard included:
Total install count (not useful)
Total uninstall count (also... not useful)
There also was an opportunity to significantly improve data visualization and digestibility of install and uninstall information for developers. I wanted not only to give them more data, but to make it easy to understand. This was top of mind for me going into the design phase.
I started by compiling the questions I needed to answer.
What were the top requested data points from Partners?
What cadence was preferred to break the data down by? Monthly? Quarterly?
How many filters and settings are needed to best optimize that data?
What page hierarchy best fits these needs?
What notification system should we utilize to increase awareness of this new dashboard?
I conducted a brainstorming session with my team of analysts, researchers, and project managers to look for answers. I also talked to App Partners themselves in moderated interviews. It was uncovered that:
Partners had been created their own hacked-together versions of an App Dashboard in Looker, outside of HubSpot.
Installs and uninstalls remained top of mind for developers, as well as source of traffic to their pages.
Partners were looking for monthly breakdowns of their app's performance, and expected updates from HubSpot about dashboard changes on the same cadence.
This is a dashboard built in Looker. We needed to create something similar within our own product.
I also conducted market research to investigate competitor's offerings and get inspiration from the features I liked most. A couple that caught my eye:
Colorful, clear graphics. Stripe and Shopify proved that app data doesn’t need to be boring to look at or hard to understand.
Simultaneously, HubSpot was undergoing a complete UI Modernization. The dashboard needed to utilize new UI components as well as brand-new page navigation. For this, I partnered closely with our Design Systems team to ensure I was aligning with the company's evolving standards for consistency, usability, and accessibility.
My role as a liaison between my team and the Design System team was integral, translating the dashboard work into a seamless, intuitive user experience that aligned with HubSpot's brand values and principles.
Throughout the project, I met with them frequently. Cross-company collaboration ensured that all design components adhered to HubSpot’s updated design system guidelines—focused on elements like typography, color palettes, spacing, and component libraries. This effort allowed for a cohesive user experience that improved user satisfaction and streamlined workflows for App Partners.
As a refresher, this is the dashboard prior to redesign and modernization, contained within a dated version of HubSpot.
After many rounds of iteration with the Design Systems team, I finalized the new navigation and aligned the page with the freshly modernized branding.
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Combining the data I gathered in the exploratory phase with the newly modernized UI components, I started designing.
Installs broken down by free vs. paid portals in addition to source of traffic data was the most requested from Partners, so I started there.
I opted for a minimalistic look, keeping in the classic HubSpot styling. The dashboard needed to feel cohesive with the rest of the product. Partners could customize the legend appearance as well as the window of time for the charts.
Metadata component. I needed a way to display the smaller data points that didn't require a chart, but were still of utmost importance to Partners. For this purpose, I designed the below component.
Source of traffic. To give a clearer view of the traffic to their app listing page, I added a table that displayed not only views and installs, but also the time to convert and the most popular features. The colors associated with each line item matched those that appear in the source of traffic chart, making it easy to scan and comprehend.
With these components ready to go, I started building the dashboard.
As part of HubSpot’s ongoing efforts to enhance the user experience for Partners, I integrated AI-driven features into the dashboard to help Partners better understand and leverage their data. The goal was to simplify complex data sets and offer actionable insights in a way that was intuitive and user-friendly.
I collaborated with the product and data science teams to incorporate AI algorithms that analyze user behavior and data trends. These algorithms would automatically generate personalized suggestions for partners, guiding them on how to interpret key metrics, identify growth opportunities, and take actionable steps to improve their business performance.
To ensure the AI-powered recommendations felt natural and aligned with HubSpot’s design principles, I carefully designed the UI to present suggestions in a clear, digestible format. The recommendations were presented within the context of the dashboard, offering users relevant insights that helped them make informed decisions without overwhelming them with too much data at once.
Final design
Our goal for this dashboard was to increase Partner interaction with their portals. This would mean at least a 25% increase of monthly portal check-ins. Once launched, the dashboard showed a significant increase of usage and hit our goal within only one month post-release. We also noted more consistent updates to app listings.
As next steps, I would like to establish a feedback loop with Partners to inform future iterations.
