GET /candidate/projects/data_studio_launch

{
  "title": "Launching Data Studio: from vision to INBOUND ’25",
  "summary": "One approachable workspace for building, cleaning and enriching CRM data, launched on schedule and now used by 400+ portals spending credits, up 292% since September 2025.",
  "details": {
    "company": "HubSpot, Data Studio (Data Hub)",
    "role": "Senior Product Designer, UX DRI and top-priority (P0) strategy owner for Data Studio",
    "team": "[N PMs], [N engineering teams], [N designers], Content Design",
    "stakeholders": "Data Hub leadership, the UBB platform team, the CRM and Workflows teams (for the Data Agent)",
    "methods": "Discovery research, concept testing, vision workshops, prototyping, beta program, defining KPIs",
    "tools": "Figma, FigJam, Lovable, NotebookLM"
  },
  "overview": {
    "problem": "Preparing CRM data meant moving between separate, technical tools, and few customers used the existing Datasets product. HubSpot needed one approachable workspace to anchor the Data Hub relaunch at INBOUND ’25.",
    "solution": "Led UX from early discovery through launch: defined the design principles and what “approachable” meant, co-led the vision workshops, and owned every AI experience (Smart Columns, the no-code editors, the Breeze assistant), all on one shared, panel-based interaction system.",
    "impact": [
      "400+ portals spending credits in Data Studio (+292% since September 2025)",
      "~1.9K portals activating datasets; ~1.3M credits spent",
      "320K+ credits spent through Smart Columns"
    ]
  },
  "context": {
    "business": "HubSpot was relaunching Data Hub, with data preparation as a core pillar. Datasets, the existing tool, had low adoption. Goal: one workspace launched at INBOUND ’25, targeting 5x Datasets adoption by 2026.",
    "customer_problem": "Preparing CRM data meant moving between separate tools, and the work felt technical and intimidating to non-specialists. [Core users and what they used instead.]",
    "evidence": "[Discovery findings: number of interviews, where users struggled, Datasets adoption before launch.]",
    "quote": "[Customer quote about how hard or fragmented data prep was] — [Role, company type]",
    "problem_statement": "How might we make preparing and enriching CRM data approachable for non-technical users, so that more customers build datasets and get value from AI features?"
  },
  "role": {
    "owned": "End-to-end UX strategy and final UX decisions across the related product teams; vision workshops (co-led); core problems and design principles; every AI experience, including its KPIs, interaction model and success metrics.",
    "partnered_on": "Workstreams with Data Hub leadership; beta and pre-INBOUND milestones with PMs; one Data Agent experience across Data Studio, CRM and Workflows with those teams.",
    "constraints": [
      "Time: a fixed public launch date at INBOUND ’25",
      "Organizational: several product teams with their own priorities shipping one product",
      "Platform: AI features on the new usage-based billing (UBB) credit system, within the HubSpot design system",
      "Complexity: many user states, from empty datasets to errors to credit limits"
    ]
  },
  "process": {
    "discover_2024": "Early discovery and concept research; mapped how customers clean their data today. Key insight: [the finding that shaped the product].",
    "define_late_2024": "Wrote the design principles; led an approachability exercise to turn “make it approachable” into testable goals; helped leadership set up workstreams.",
    "align_spring_2025": "Co-led vision workshops, including a Summit workshop on 5/14/25; walked Data Hub leadership through the vision flow.",
    "validate_and_ship": "Tested concepts with prototypes, ran the beta, tracked pre-INBOUND milestones and cleared blockers. [Beta customers and what changed.]"
  },
  "decisions": [
    { "decision": "How to structure AI actions", "options": "One-off UI per feature / a shared system", "chose": "A panel-based action library across workflows and user states, so new AI features drop into one pattern", "tradeoff": "More upfront design work; less freedom for each team" },
    { "decision": "Where the Data Agent lives", "options": "Separate per product / one unified agent", "chose": "One Data Agent across Data Studio, CRM and Workflows, so users learn it once", "tradeoff": "Cross-team coordination slowed some decisions" },
    { "decision": "[What made it into the INBOUND launch]", "options": "[Full vision / a smaller first release]", "chose": "[What was cut or deferred, and why]", "tradeoff": "[Tradeoff]" }
  ],
  "buy_in": "Vision workshops, a leadership walkthrough and working prototypes gave teams a shared picture of “what good looks like” before anyone committed to a build.",
  "solution": [
    "One workspace for building, cleaning and enriching datasets, designed around the approachability principles",
    "Smart Columns and the Breeze assistant: AI and web search enrichment inside the dataset, with clear credit usage, error states and billing",
    "A panel-based action library with component audits and a design review rhythm; the same Data Agent appears in CRM and Workflows"
  ],
  "impact": {
    "metrics": [
      "Portals spending credits in Data Studio: 400+ (+292% since September 2025)",
      "Portals activating datasets: ~1.9K",
      "Total credits spent: ~1.3M",
      "Credits spent through Smart Columns: 320K+",
      "Activations after the credit estimate: ~+12%"
    ],
    "qualitative": "Manager: post-launch numbers “reflect real, tangible business impact.” Data Platform and Marketing Hub teams adopted Data Studio UI patterns.",
    "quote": "[Quote from a beta customer or PM] — [Role]"
  },
  "reflection": {
    "do_differently": "Balance big upfront framing with smaller, faster changes; get a high-fidelity “what good looks like” in front of teams sooner.",
    "learned": "On a multi-team launch, the shared system (principles, the action library, operating rhythms) matters as much as any single screen.",
    "next": "Credit transparency (activations ~+12%) and a Data Management overview page for discoverability. [Status of the 5x Datasets goal.]"
  }
}