Prospection platform — Dashboard
Empowering marketing managers to access critical pharmaceutical performance data, without waiting for analyst support.
Overview
The challenge
Marketing managers at our major Japanese pharmaceutical client were constantly bottlenecked by data access. Every time they needed to understand market share, identify patients who should transition from older to newer treatments, or assess competitive positioning, they had to submit requests to data analysts and wait for custom reports.
This dependency created delays in critical business decisions and frustrated marketing teams who needed real-time insights to effectively manage their portfolios. More importantly, it hindered their ability to quickly identify patients on older treatments who could benefit from transitioning to newer medication with fewer side effects. This is a key factor in getting patients on the right treatment faster.
47
Japanese prefectures
100%
Self-service access
Real-time
Data insights
My role
As the senior UX designer for this project, I transformed complex healthcare datasets into an intuitive self-service dashboard that gave marketing managers direct access to the insights they needed.
Key responsibilities
- Requirements gathering with marketing managers and data analysts
- Information architecture design for complex pharmaceutical data
- Data visualisation strategy and chart selection
- Visual interface design and prototyping
- Collaboration with engineering team for implementation
Discovery
Understanding the user pain points
Through interviews with marketing managers and data analysts, I uncovered the core problems:
Repetitive requests
Marketing managers needed the same types of insights repeatedly (market share, patient populations, competitive analysis)
Analyst bottleneck
Data analysts were spending significant time on routine requests rather than complex analysis
Decision delays
Critical business decisions were delayed while waiting for data requests to be fulfilled
Patients on old treatments
Patients were often on older medications, when newer medications with fewer side effects were available
Key user needs identified
Essential requirements
- Quick access to market share data across all managed medications
- Ability to identify patient populations eligible for treatment transitions, particularly those on older medications who could benefit from newer treatments with improved safety profiles
- Geographic visibility into treatment patterns to spot regions where patients might still be on outdated therapies
- Competitive landscape visibility without technical expertise required
- Market-wide view rather than medication-by-medication analysis
- Geographic performance insights across Japan's diverse healthcare regions
Design process
1
Information architecture
I collaborated with both user groups to map out the most critical data relationships and create a logical hierarchy that matched marketing managers' mental models.
2
Data visualisation strategy
A key challenge was selecting the right chart types to make complex pharmaceutical data immediately comprehensible to non-technical users, including geographic performance patterns across Japan.
Chart and map selection examples
- Patient dynamics: Used waterfall charts to show patient flow over time, starting with current patients on treatment, showing negative flows (switch-outs, discontinuations, deaths) and positive flows (new initiations, switch-ins), ending with net patient change. This gave managers an instant visual understanding of treatment adoption patterns.
- Geographic performance: Designed maps displaying drug performance data across Japan's 47 prefectures. Selecting national, allowed for the big picture. Used bubble size, colour and up and down icons to represent market penetration levels, allowing managers to quickly identify high-performing regions and underserved areas requiring attention. This ability to select by or sub-region or prefecture to see patient dynamics in that area was particularly valuable for spotting regions where patients remained on older treatments and could be candidates for newer therapies with better safety profiles.
- Market share analysis: Implemented stacked bar charts to show competitive positioning across therapeutic areas, with geographic filtering options linked to the map interface. Managers could click a prefecture to see competitive landscape specific to that region.
- Trend analysis: Applied line charts with clear annotations for key events (drug launches, regulatory changes) to help managers understand performance drivers over time, with geographic comparisons available.
3
Visual hierarchy and clarity
- Used consistent colour coding across all visualisations, including maps (green for positive metrics, red for concerning trends)
- Applied progressive disclosure. National map summary with prefecture drill-down revealed detailed performance metrics. The data card panel could be opened to show more detail as well.
- Used icons, visual cues and terminology that users understood
- Map legends weren't even required, because I never used colour alone as an indicator.
- Tooltips provided additional context on hover.
Dashboard design principles
- Lead with the metrics that drive daily decisions (market share, patient counts)
- Group related insights together using visual containers and consistent spacing
- Ensure accessibility with sufficient colour contrast and alternative text labels for screen readers
- Responsive design considerations for different screen sizes used in various work environments
4
Iterative validation
Through multiple rounds of prototyping and testing with actual marketing managers, I refined the interface to ensure they could find answers to their most common questions within seconds, not minutes.
Results
Immediate user empowerment
Marketing managers could now instantly access market share data, competitive positioning, and patient opportunity insights for their entire drug portfolio—tasks that previously required analyst support and waiting time. Most importantly, they could quickly identify geographic areas where patients remained on older treatments and direct sales representatives to engage with doctors in those regions about transitioning patients to newer, more beneficial therapies.
Geographic insights unlocked
The interactive prefecture maps revealed regional treatment patterns that were previously hidden in spreadsheets—managers could now instantly spot areas with high concentrations of patients on older drugs and strategically deploy sales representatives to educate doctors about newer treatment options. This targeted approach enabled more efficient resource allocation and accelerated patient transitions to more effective therapies across Japan's diverse healthcare landscape.
Visual design validation
The intuitive chart selections and clean visual hierarchy meant marketing managers could interpret complex data patterns without training—waterfall charts immediately clicked for understanding patient dynamics, while the consistent visual language reduced cognitive load when switching between different data views.
Workflow transformation
The self-service dashboard freed data analysts from routine reporting requests, allowing them to focus on complex strategic analysis that truly required their expertise.
Business continuity
This solution proved critical for maintaining operations with the major Japanese client, directly contributing to contract renewal and expanded partnership.
The intuitive interface required minimal training. Marketing managers began using it effectively immediately, confirming that the design successfully bridged the gap between complex healthcare data and business decision-making.
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