Background

Calixa was an early stage product-led growth (PLG) platform helping modern sales teams integrate customer data and find high-value sales opportunities.

In Calixa’s early days, users navigated through saved sets of filters to organize people and companies, known as “Saved Segments.” These segments were split across two separate pages: Users and Accounts. Since customer data was tied to specific entity types (user, account, or company), Saved Segments had to be created separately for each type.

As Calixa matured, so did our customers’ needs. They were no longer just identifying sales opportunities — they were involving marketing, customer success, and more. Segment organization became increasingly complex, and it was time to rethink how we managed this core part of the interface.

Problem(s)

Customers were creating more Saved Segments than ever before, leading to some clear pain points:

• Navigation Confusion: Users often got lost when switching between the Users and Accounts pages, expecting to find their saved segments but not realizing they’d navigated away.

• Naming Conflict: The term “Saved Segments” frequently caused confusion with the third-party tool Segment, a popular integration.

• Lack of Organization: Customers needed folders to separate segments by function (e.g., sales, customer success, marketing).

• Alert Creation: Regular users wanted to set up Alerts from their Saved Segments, tracking when people or companies met specific criteria.

Discover

I began by aligning with product management on our research goals and timeline. I then conducted three customer interviews, each lasting around 30 minutes, where I aimed to learn how users interacted with Saved Segments. I recorded the sessions to capture any recurring themes or pain points.

Key Takeaways:

• Disorientation: Switching between Users and Accounts caused frustration, as the layouts were identical, leading users to assume their segments had disappeared.

• Terminology Issues: The term “Saved Segments” was misleading and often confused with the integration Segment.

• Demand for Organization: Users wanted folder structures to differentiate segments used by sales, marketing, and customer success teams.

• Alert Friction: Users requested a straightforward way to create Alerts directly from a segment.

These insights clarified the need to restructure how segments were organized and accessed, moving from fragmented navigation to a more unified approach.

Define

After discussing the findings with product and engineering stakeholders, we defined our goals:

• Merge Users and Accounts: Create a single page for easier navigation between entity types.

• Introduce Folders: Allow users to organize views based on function or team.

• Integrate Alerts: Make it simple to set up notifications from any saved view.

• Improve Clarity: Use a more intuitive name, “Views” to avoid confusion with the third-party integration, Segment.

Design

The concept of “Views” emerged as a natural evolution of Saved Segments, making it clear that these were filtered perspectives on customer data.

New designs were focused on:

• Unified Navigation: A single page for browsing and managing views, replacing the segmented structure of Users and Accounts.

• Folder System: A clear, hierarchical structure that made it easy to group views by function.

• Quick Actions: Contextual options (e.g., Rename, Duplicate, Move to Folder, Delete) accessible via a streamlined menu.

• Alert Integration: An intuitive, visible button to create alerts directly from any view.

• Clear Naming: Transitioned from “Saved Segments” to “Views” to remove ambiguity and make the feature’s purpose more intuitive.

To reinforce clarity, I made sure the UI consistently displayed the entity type (user, account, or company) in each view, helping customers stay oriented as they navigated between different datasets.

Deliver

After finalizing the designs in Figma, I cleaned up my workspace and created a structured flow to present the new “Views” feature. I recorded a short video flyover, highlighting key interactions and explaining how the redesigned navigation made it easier to manage and find views.

I worked closely with engineering to ensure a smooth handoff, addressing any questions directly and recording brief walkthroughs where needed. Once the updated feature was live in staging, I performed QA testing, documenting any inconsistencies and flagging issues for immediate resolution.

Impact

The redesign was met with enthusiasm from customers, who appreciated the clearer navigation and organization:

• Improved Usability: Customers reported that merging Users and Accounts reduced confusion and made it easier to find their saved views.

• Clearer Terminology: The change from “Saved Segments” to “Views” eliminated confusion with third-party tools.

• Enhanced Organization: Folders allowed teams to segment their data logically, making collaboration easier.

• Actionable Insights: Users could now set up Alerts directly from a view, which improved their ability to track critical changes.

Usage data confirmed the positive response: customers created more views than before and interacted more frequently with the new folder structure. These improvements made “Views” a robust feature that fit seamlessly into evolving customer workflows.

Building on this success, we identified future improvements to explore:

• Enhanced Alerts: Clearly indicate which views already have active alerts.

• Suggested Views: Leverage data to automatically generate useful new views for customers.

• Improved Onboarding: Establish default Views to get new customers up and running faster.