Lucy Carpenter

Lucy CarpenterLucy CarpenterLucy Carpenter
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Lucy Carpenter

Lucy CarpenterLucy CarpenterLucy Carpenter
TABLEAU

TaBLEAU PULSE

I led this 10-month project from discovery through V1 launch—owning the full UX strategy and end-to-end design alongside 2 designers I managed. We collaborated closely with research, engineering, and product management to shape the product vision, and I drove alignment with stakeholders and cross-functional teams.

project goalS

Business goals

Expand the user base by making data insights accessible to a broader, non-technical audience through AI-driven, contextual notifications integrated into everyday tools. By embedding analytics directly into workflows, the product aimed to increase user engagement and adoption, accelerate data-driven decision-making, and ultimately deliver a strong return on investment (ROI) by driving more value from existing data assets and reducing reliance on traditional BI workflows.

Design goal

Create a frictionless, personalized experience that delivers timely, relevant data insights in natural language—directly within users’ existing workflows and tools. This meant designing intuitive notifications and contextual alerts that empower both technical and non-technical users to quickly understand and act on key metrics without needing to leave their daily apps.

solutions

Seamless Integration into Everyday Workflows
The final Pulse design prioritizes meeting users where they already work. Rather than requiring business users to log into Tableau and dig through dashboards, Pulse delivers personalized, real-time insights directly into collaboration tools like Slack, email, and Microsoft Teams. This approach reduces friction, minimizes context-switching, and ensures that key metrics and alerts reach users when and where they’re needed most.

Smart Alerts with Built-In Context
Pulse goes beyond traditional data alerts by combining anomaly detection with intelligent, AI-powered summaries. Users don’t just get notified that something changed—they see a clear explanation of what happened, why it matters, and what actions to consider next. These context-rich insights cut through the noise of generic alerts and help business users focus the

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Clickless Exploration and Guided Drill-Down
Wherever people see the Pulse metrics they include concise summaries and rich visual indicators directly within each alert. When users do need to investigate further, Pulse provides deep links that take them straight to the exact view in Tableau—no extra clicks, filters, or guesswork required. 

Easy to create new Pulse metrics
I wanted non-technical users to be able to quickly create their own Pulse metrics without relying on a central data team. I wanted many entry points and a guided experience, but also give advanced users a lot of customization. 

challenges

Surface key data moments, not noise

Deliver relevant, personalized alerts based on metric thresholds and user preferences.

Design for the flow of work

Embed insights directly into Slack, Teams, and email to drive action without switching context.

Simplify a complex backend

Hide technical complexity (like anomaly detection and thresholds) behind a clear, intuitive UX.

Support trust and transparency

Make it easy to see why a Pulse was triggered, what changed, and what to do next.

Coordinate across systems and roles

Align alerting logic, metric definitions, and delivery mechanisms across teams and tools.

discovery

I partnered with UX research to understand how Pulse could integrate into a business user’s daily workflow—observing how people monitored data across Slack, email, dashboards, and mobile. While co-leading early explorations with a product designer, I focused on defining the opportunity space, aligning teams, and setting strategic direction. I facilitated workshops, led executive interviews, and he

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technical constaints

I began with several whiteboard sessions with PMs and developers to understand the technical underpinnings of the data flow required to create a Pulse metric.

happy path alignment

I facilitated a cross-functional workshop using early wireframes to visualize the ideal user journey. PMs, engineers, and execs collaborated to identify key moments of differentiation and uncover friction points, aligning the team around opportunities and obstacles early in the design process.

Design-Led Approach & Collaboration

Design Leadership & Strategy

  • Led quarterly planning sessions to align design goals with business priorities
  • Facilitated key workshops for cross-functional collaboration and strategic decision-making
  • Hosted bi-weekly stakeholder design reviews to gather feedback and maintain executive alignment
  • Set UX metrics to define customer success

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Communication

  • Scheduled regular 1:1s with PMs and tech leads to prioritize work and plan design deliverables
  • Coordinated meetings with cross-functional partners to ensure cohesive product development

Agile Execution & Team Engagement

  • Participated in weekly standups to stay aligned on project progress and blockers
  • Established quick feedback channels on Slack for real-time design input and iteration
  • Organized weekly brainstorming sessions with engineering teams to foster innovation and solve complex challenges

journey mapping

This journey map outlines a business user’s experience—from alerts in Slack and email to root cause analysis. It uncovered friction switching from Slack alerts to Tableau Desktop, disrupting workflow. To fix this, we designed contextual deep links and in-alert summaries that help users quickly grasp issues and jump straight to the right Tableau view.

FLOW DIAGRAMMING

This flow diagram maps the dynamic paths of the 3 main personas across multiple platforms like Slack, email, and mobile. Unlike static workflows, Pulse’s flow adapts to user preferences, real-time data changes, and contextual triggers—making it essential to visualize these complex, conditional interactions to design a seamless and responsive user experience.

CROSS-VERTICAL COLLABORATION

It demanded tight cross-team technical coordination to deliver secure, real-time insights. I mapped out the tech stack and how it integrated with the UI flow. This required working with Security to ensure data compliance, integrated with Slack and Salesforce email for in-flow alerts, and partnered with Tableau Desktop and Server teams to support deep linking and data pipelines. Collaboration with 

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design iteration

Design iteration was highly collaborative and evolved through an expanding set of stakeholders. I co-led design with the designer I managed, partnering closely with our dev and PM teams in early cycles. As the work matured, I ran weekly cross-team reviews with adjacent product areas like Slack and email to ensure a cohesive user flow. Each month, I presented to executives to align on vision and di

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VALIDATION

To validate the Pulse experience, I started with early hypothesis testing on low-fidelity wireframes, focusing on how users understood key concepts like real-time signals and in-flow delivery. As the design matured, I ran in-person usability studies at both mid- and high-fidelity stages to test comprehension, trust, and actionability of insights. I complemented this with async A/B testing on usertesting.com to assess tone, timing, and clarity at scale. These findings shaped how we structured insight cards, refined delivery logic, and improved consistency across touchpoints—ensuring the experience was both useful and trustworthy in daily workflows.

RESULTS

Metrics

Tableau Pulse has significantly enhanced data accessibility and decision-making efficiency. Early adoption metrics indicate a 30% increase in alert interaction rates and a 25% reduction in time-to-action on critical data changes. By delivering personalized insights directly within users' workflows—via platforms like Slack, email, and mobile—Pulse has expanded its reach and improved user engagement.

User feedback

A notable example comes from Virgin Media O2, which piloted Pulse during Black Friday 2024. The team reported that Pulse's AI-generated insights were a "real hit," sparking excitement and proactive discussions among users. This enthusiasm has led to plans for broader adoption and exploration of additional use cases.

Media

Copyright © 2025 Lucy Carpenter