Visualizing Data at VTS

VTS is a leading Commercial Real Estate (CRE) tour to lease management and operating system that is adopted by many CRE property investment firms and brokerage companies across North America.

Since the onset of the pandemic forced office-using workers at home, reliable space occupancy and tenant information almost vanished overnight. While other CRE research databases that depend on in-person anecdotes struggle to obtain data, VTS continues to collect real-time deals and leasing information online. De-risking large CRE investment decisions can only derive from trustworthy data, but only when it has been sorted, arranged, and presented into explainable insights. To make that workflow scale and easy to execute, our data analysts need usable, well-designed tools and visual analytics.

For this initiative, my role as a product designer is to connect the right data story to the right audience, and I have the pleasure of working work with a team of product and business leaders to help tell meaningful stories with data.

My Process:

1. Identify user needs and business outcomes

2. Define our audience

3. Prioritizing requirements with PMs

4. Determine impact and success metrics

5. Find outside examples

6. Explore design options

7. Test and validate solutions

8. Document design decisions

9. Implement

10. Measure results

The Challenge - What data?

Within a couple of years, VTS acquired 2 companies, spanning across multiple solutions from a digital lease management product to an online marketplace. The rapid growth of the platform lead to integrating multiple data sets and mapping frameworks. The raw data was unsorted and not standardized.

There was no source of truth.

In order to begin, we needed to first collect the right data and then process it. Only when the data has been cleaned and arranged then it can be analyzed and explored.

The existing landscape was full of workarounds with no standardization. Depending on who was sorting the data, results were inconsistent. A robust workflow with validated business logic needed to be in place. To begin refining the data mapping process, I facilitated a two day workshop with stakeholders and subject matter experts to align on problems and misconceptions, and to agree on a standardized protocol. The results of the workshop was a well-documented decision tree to repeat categorization steps that match our client’s mental model.

With the data cleaned, we can attempt to answer the problems our clients are facing.

The human factors

Who needs this data, what do they need it for, and when?

Keeping end users close throughout the process is crucial to ensuring the effectiveness of data visualizations. I needed to understand the types of decisions they’re making, and the questions asked along the way, in order to surface the right information at the right time.

After conducting several user interviews, we learned that key decisions are made based on an asset’s lifecycle, and that those decisions are made as information is being traded between cross-functional teams.

We also found that users ask very specific questions and have little time to come up with answers. They were making a lot of high-stake bets. When it comes to analyzing large amounts of data, selecting the right visual technique can help users understand the data faster and draw their own conclusions at a glance. Good visualizations can simplify messages and make insights easier to understand.

I framed what we learned into a Value proposition map and then Journey mapped the touch-points that needed reliable data.

Defining Goals & Success measures

The desired outcome of this initiative was to make VTS’s data available to a wider audience. In our solution, we believed that our users needed access to dynamic dashboards to conduct their own analyses, we first decided to integrate simple charts into our existing reporting feature.

However, we quickly learned our initial assumption was incorrect.

Asset managers and investors in the CRE industry often reference market reports and publications that include wider business insights and tenant information. Because of the large scale and risks their decisions may impact, it was important to gain their trust. Our data needed to be proven and validated, and be at a level of certainty to what they were seeing in real life. We needed a narrative with a human perspective alongside the data we were presenting. To succeed, it was desired for our information to be synthesized and presented in a compelling way and also communicated through storytelling.

We took a white-glove approach and bespoke insights with narratives that matter to the specific client. CRE analysts and research teams were formed, and my work now focused on making sure the visual analytics support and help explain the insights.

The road ahead

Charts are easy to make but difficult to perfect.

This is one of the most impactful and collaborative projects I‘ve designed at VTS. The opportunity to design internal tools and workflows that also directly impact our client’s holistic experience with data is highly rewarding.

• Our visual analytics product is now one of the best selling feature and service.

• This project became one of the fastest revenue generating product in the company - reaching close to 60% revenue goal within the first 9 months.

Now that we have a great foundation, we can dive deeper into perfecting the insights and scale visual analytics across the platform. Can other user roles benefit from our insights? Can we encourage better data inputs? Can we improve data literacy? etc… More of that to come!