Qualtrics

Project Overview

My time at Qualtrics was both foundational and fast-paced. I joined during a period of early momentum—right before the company entered its major growth phase—which gave me a unique opportunity to work on a broad swath of the product and have a direct hand in shaping its user experience.

As part of a leaner design team, I was involved in everything from wireframing and prototyping to research and iteration, often working cross-functionally with engineering and product leads. Whether it was helping reimagine complex workflows or tightening up legacy components, I had the chance to learn deeply about enterprise-scale UX design while making tangible improvements to the platform.

One of my most impactful projects focused on modernizing core workflows in the survey builder and dashboard tools—two heavily used but aging areas of the product. With user needs evolving and new feature demands growing, we needed to rework not just the UI, but also the underlying interaction patterns to support scale, simplicity, and consistency across devices.

Being able to contribute to both the vision and the hands-on implementation of these updates gave me a strong appreciation for designing at scale while staying grounded in real user needs.

‍🧩 The Challenge: Designing for Scale Without Adding Complexity

As Qualtrics quickly evolved into a multi-solution platform, one thing became clear: the user experience wasn’t keeping up with the product’s growth. While new features were built with updated patterns, large portions—especially dashboards and survey tools—were still running on legacy UI components.

This created a fragmented experience, especially for newer or non-technical users. The interface looked and felt different depending on where you were in the product. And as more users started accessing dashboards from their phones—particularly executives needing quick insights—we knew the platform had to work better across screen sizes and workflows.

The core challenge: **Unify the experience, modernize key tools, and reduce friction—**all without overwhelming power users or disrupting their workflows.

🔍 Research & Discovery

To get a full picture of what was working (and what wasn’t), I partnered with product, research, and customer success to dig into pain points across user types and industries.

Research Methods:

• Stakeholder Interviews: Worked with internal teams across verticals to identify friction points and feature blind spots

• Support Ticket Analysis: Reviewed Zendesk logs and call summaries to uncover repeat usability issues

• Competitive Research: Analyzed design systems and product flows from platforms like Medallia, SurveyMonkey, and Typeform to identify modern UX trends

Key Insights:

• Users felt lost in deep workflows, especially during survey setup or dashboard editing

• Legacy components looked outdated and created inconsistent mental models

• Mobile usage was rising fast, but core tools weren’t optimized for smaller screens

• Users wanted more contextual guidance—not more screens

“I never know where I am in the process—or what I might break if I click something wrong.”
— User Feedback, Customer Success Logs

🎯 Design Goals

From our research and internal alignment sessions, we focused on three key goals:

1. Simplify complex workflows without stripping away advanced functionality

2. Unify the UI under the modern Qualtrics design system for consistency and trust

3. Prioritize mobile, especially for executive users who needed dashboards on the go

💡 Ideation & UX Strategy

This wasn’t just about polishing UI—it was about making the product feel smarter, lighter, and more intuitive, especially during high-friction moments like creating surveys or building dashboards.

Concepts Explored:

• Modular Layouts: Let users collapse, drag, and rearrange sections based on what mattered most

• Inline Editing: Enabled quick updates to widgets and survey blocks without opening new screens

• Consolidated Tool Panels: Grouped related actions into collapsible sidebars to reduce visual noise

• Progressive Disclosure: Surface advanced options only when needed to avoid overwhelming users

• Smarter Defaults & Templates: Help users get started quickly with pre-filled layouts and settings

✏️ Design Execution

Using Figma, I created a suite of mid- and high-fidelity prototypes covering key user flows—survey creation, dashboard editing, and mobile dashboard interactions.

Key UX Improvements:

🧩 Dashboard Redesign:

• Drag-and-drop module editing

• Unified toolbar with edit/view toggles

• Mobile-optimized layout with stacked, card-style widgets

📝 Smarter Survey Builder:

• Streamlined flow with contextual tips and autosave

• Real-time previews to help users see how changes will display

• Reduced steps by offering intelligent defaults and template starting points

🧰 Design System Integration:

• Migrated legacy patterns to the Qualtrics design system

• Standardized components (buttons, inputs, tooltips, spacing)

• Improved consistency across modules and views

🧪 Testing & Validation

We tested the updated designs with a mix of internal stakeholders and external users from key verticals.

Testing Approach:

• Participants: Internal product teams + pilot customers from enterprise and education

• Methods: Moderated testing on dashboard creation, survey building, and mobile usage

• Focus Areas: Ease of use, task efficiency, visual clarity, responsiveness

Key Learnings:

• Collapsed tool panels + inline editing made workflows faster and less overwhelming

• Even advanced users appreciated tooltips and micro-copy—they reduced second-guessing

• Mobile dashboard usage spiked—especially among executive users checking key metrics

• Early exposure to too many advanced features caused decision fatigue—progressive disclosure was key

“This new experience just feels more confident. It gets out of my way, but it’s still powerful.”
— Pilot User, Post-Test Debrief

✅ Final Design Solution

Core Enhancements:

• Modular Dashboards: Editable and customizable in one screen, with easy drag-and-drop and filter options

• Smarter Survey Builder: Clean layout, fewer clicks, and contextual prompts to guide users along the way

• Mobile Optimization: Adaptive layouts that preserved clarity and actionability on tablets and smartphones

• Design System Migration: Unified look and feel across the platform, improving trust and navigability

• Accessibility Improvements: Refined iconography, improved contrast, and better type for screen readers and keyboard users

📊 Results & Impact

📉 Reduced Support Volume:

• Significant drop in tickets related to dashboard editing and survey building

• Support teams reported faster onboarding for new users thanks to clearer UI flows

📈 Increased Engagement:

• Power users customized dashboards more often and discovered new features

• Executives accessed dashboards on mobile 2x more frequently in the months following launch

🚀 Improved Onboarding:

• New users completed surveys and created dashboards with less guidance

• Higher satisfaction in post-onboarding feedback surveys

💭 Reflections & Learnings

This project reinforced how important design consistency is when building at scale. Users want flexibility, but they also want to feel anchored. Legacy UI patterns had become friction points, not features.

Designing for complex platforms isn’t about dumbing things down—it’s about surfacing the right tools at the right time. And sometimes, the best UX decisions are the quiet ones: fewer screens, smarter defaults, and patterns that just feel right.

Ultimately, our goal was simple: make Qualtrics feel as powerful as it is—without making users work for it.