Industry
Customer Data Platform
Company
Segment
Empowering non-technical users to set up analytics with confidence
Designing a low code tool for users to onboard to Segment
Segment wanted to expand adoption beyond technical teams and empower a broader audience, marketers, founders, and product managers, to set up analytics on their own. But many of these new customers lacked the technical expertise required for event tracking, leading to delayed activation, frustration, and higher churn risk. I led the redesign of onboarding from a Chrome extension prototype into an integrated no-code, in-app experience that simplified setup, reduced friction, and gave non-technical users the confidence to activate quickly.
Role
Lead Product Designer (Onboarding & Activation)
Time
~12 months (from prototype, Alpha, Beta, to GA)
Team
1 designer (me), 1 PM, 4 engineers, 2 researchers
Problem Space
Technical Skill Gap: Non-technical users lacked expertise for implementation.
Unintuitive Architecture: Key actions were buried, slowing onboarding.
Confusing Content & Language: Terminology didn’t align with user mental models.
Workflow Inefficiencies: Mode-switching, missing auto-save, and fragmented flows created errors.
Business Risk: Delayed activation reduced value realization, increasing churn risk.
Research & Insights
Usability research: Conducted interviews and task analysis with early-stage customers.
Key finding: Target users preferred learning by doing rather than relying on documentation or waiting for engineering support.
Pain points: Friction in event setup, unclear status feedback, and anxiety about “breaking something” blocked progress.
Design Goals
Accessibility: Make analytics setup approachable for non-technical users.
Simplicity: Reduce friction by streamlining event tracking into a single intuitive flow.
Confidence: Provide testing and draft-publish flows so users could experiment safely.
Efficiency: Eliminate redundant mode-switching and enable auto-save.
Process & Explorations
Introduced a visual “tagger” UI for setting up events directly in context.
Designed a draft & publish workflow so users could experiment without risk.
Added auto-save and inline testing tools to reduce setup errors.
Iterated through wireframes → interactive prototypes → 15 usability sessions.
Launch & Validation
Released redesigned no-code tool to a pilot group.
5 of 8 early users rated ease of use >8/10, confirming usability improvements.
Representative feedback:
“I set up my first event in just 30 seconds with the tagger!”
“I had been waiting a month for my engineering team… with the visual tagger it only took 20 minutes!”
Impact / Results
50% increase in workspaces sending track events within 14 days of activation — a critical adoption milestone.
Reduced dependency on engineering teams, enabling faster self-service onboarding.
Boosted customer activation rates by giving non-technical users confidence to set up analytics independently.
Strengthened retention by ensuring customers could quickly realize product value.
Reflection / Learnings
Simplification was not just about UI — aligning language and workflows with user mental models was key.
Early, iterative validation gave confidence to launch under tight timelines.
Future opportunity: extend no-code tooling into multi-event setup and advanced analytics without requiring engineering handoff.
Problem Space
Technical Skill Gap: Non-technical users lacked expertise for implementation.
Unintuitive Architecture: Key actions were buried, slowing onboarding.
Confusing Content & Language: Terminology didn’t align with user mental models.
Workflow Inefficiencies: Mode-switching, missing auto-save, and fragmented flows created errors.
Business Risk: Delayed activation reduced value realization, increasing churn risk.
Research & Insights
Usability research: Conducted interviews and task analysis with early-stage customers.
Key finding: Target users preferred learning by doing rather than relying on documentation or waiting for engineering support.
Pain points: Friction in event setup, unclear status feedback, and anxiety about “breaking something” blocked progress.
Design Goals
Accessibility: Make analytics setup approachable for non-technical users.
Simplicity: Reduce friction by streamlining event tracking into a single intuitive flow.
Confidence: Provide testing and draft-publish flows so users could experiment safely.
Efficiency: Eliminate redundant mode-switching and enable auto-save.
Process & Explorations
Introduced a visual “tagger” UI for setting up events directly in context.
Designed a draft & publish workflow so users could experiment without risk.
Added auto-save and inline testing tools to reduce setup errors.
Iterated through wireframes → interactive prototypes → 15 usability sessions.
Launch & Validation
Released redesigned no-code tool to a pilot group.
5 of 8 early users rated ease of use >8/10, confirming usability improvements.
Representative feedback:
“I set up my first event in just 30 seconds with the tagger!”
“I had been waiting a month for my engineering team… with the visual tagger it only took 20 minutes!”
Impact / Results
50% increase in workspaces sending track events within 14 days of activation — a critical adoption milestone.
Reduced dependency on engineering teams, enabling faster self-service onboarding.
Boosted customer activation rates by giving non-technical users confidence to set up analytics independently.
Strengthened retention by ensuring customers could quickly realize product value.
Reflection / Learnings
Simplification was not just about UI — aligning language and workflows with user mental models was key.
Early, iterative validation gave confidence to launch under tight timelines.
Future opportunity: extend no-code tooling into multi-event setup and advanced analytics without requiring engineering handoff.
Problem Space
Technical Skill Gap: Non-technical users lacked expertise for implementation.
Unintuitive Architecture: Key actions were buried, slowing onboarding.
Confusing Content & Language: Terminology didn’t align with user mental models.
Workflow Inefficiencies: Mode-switching, missing auto-save, and fragmented flows created errors.
Business Risk: Delayed activation reduced value realization, increasing churn risk.
Research & Insights
Usability research: Conducted interviews and task analysis with early-stage customers.
Key finding: Target users preferred learning by doing rather than relying on documentation or waiting for engineering support.
Pain points: Friction in event setup, unclear status feedback, and anxiety about “breaking something” blocked progress.
Design Goals
Accessibility: Make analytics setup approachable for non-technical users.
Simplicity: Reduce friction by streamlining event tracking into a single intuitive flow.
Confidence: Provide testing and draft-publish flows so users could experiment safely.
Efficiency: Eliminate redundant mode-switching and enable auto-save.
Process & Explorations
Introduced a visual “tagger” UI for setting up events directly in context.
Designed a draft & publish workflow so users could experiment without risk.
Added auto-save and inline testing tools to reduce setup errors.
Iterated through wireframes → interactive prototypes → 15 usability sessions.
Launch & Validation
Released redesigned no-code tool to a pilot group.
5 of 8 early users rated ease of use >8/10, confirming usability improvements.
Representative feedback:
“I set up my first event in just 30 seconds with the tagger!”
“I had been waiting a month for my engineering team… with the visual tagger it only took 20 minutes!”
Impact / Results
50% increase in workspaces sending track events within 14 days of activation — a critical adoption milestone.
Reduced dependency on engineering teams, enabling faster self-service onboarding.
Boosted customer activation rates by giving non-technical users confidence to set up analytics independently.
Strengthened retention by ensuring customers could quickly realize product value.
Reflection / Learnings
Simplification was not just about UI — aligning language and workflows with user mental models was key.
Early, iterative validation gave confidence to launch under tight timelines.
Future opportunity: extend no-code tooling into multi-event setup and advanced analytics without requiring engineering handoff.