Serendipitous Discovery
PitchBook Search, Discovery, and Visualizations
MSIM 2017 capstone project
The Company
PitchBook Data is an online data platform that provides research, financial information, and resources to analyze private companies, investments and funds, private equity and venture capital.
The Project
PitchBook wanted to explore new ways to surface insightful information to their users by allowing them to discover more information.
My Contribution
User Experience Designer and Researcher
Interviewed stakeholders and potential users
Analyzed qualitative data from interviews
Created wireframes in Axure
Conducted usability tests
Created high fidelity interactive prototypes in Axure, primarily focusing on Basic Search and Advanced Search
Process
Research
Persona Analysis
Analyzed Pitchbook's 17 existing user personas
Domain Research
Defined the VC process and determined most common search tasks for VC analysts.
Analysis of Existing Structures
Examined site map and taxonomy, examined advanced search user interface.
Informational Interviews
Interviewed eight employees from PitchBook to learn more about the users
Competitive Analysis
Compared PitchBook's search and features intended for discovery to those features of their top competitors.
Design Iterations and User Testing
Three rounds of user testing were performed throughout the design process to test navigational components, validate content, information validation and user acceptance testing.
Basic Search
Results:
More financial data in the summary box
Removed information on team members and similar companies
Added deal information for companies, and work history for people
Advanced Search
Results:
Dynamically updating search results
Reduced search filters to fit in such a small window of the screen
Explore & Discover
Findings:
Heat maps for proportions, line graphs for trends and bar charts for comparison and magnitude representations
Explore page as a separate analytics tool