Designing Empathetic, Empowering, and Engaging Internal Tools for Analytics

Designing Empathetic, Empowering, and Engaging
Internal Tools
Emily Riederer
Sr. Analyst, Capital One
@EmilyRiederer / emily.riederer@capitalone.com

Emily Riederer, Capital One (@EmilyRiederer) References on GitHub: emilyriederer/references/deee.md
Revolutions in science and technology have inspired step changes in how businesses
operate and catalyzed the need for building good internal tools
Scientific Observation Experimental Science Reproducible Research
Data Analysis at Scale Open-Source
Communities

Communities
Hypothesis-Driven
Business Analysis

Communities
Data-Driven
Business Analysis

Reproducible Business Analysis with Innersourced Tools
Communities

Businesses are taking novel approaches to filling this need, with analyst and developer roles
converging to the “analyst developer”
Analysis &
Insight Generation
• Analytical Frameworks
• Business Knowledge
• Scripts
• Data Sources
• Presentation Materials
Packaging as
Reproducible Tools
• Repositories
• R/python Packages
• Templates
• Demos/Tutorials

Businesses are taking novel approaches to filling this need, with analyst and developer roles
converging to the “analyst developer”
Analysis &
Insight Generation
Packaging as
Reproducible Tools

Much like open-source projects, empathy, empowerment, and engagement are key traits to
successful innersource development initiatives
Empathy
design to meet users’ needs
Empowerment
design to teach and facilitate
Engagement
design for extension with invitation to contribute

Analyst-driven development creates natural empathy instead of relying on heuristics
Empathy
Empowerment
Engagement

User stories for data products can overfit to one stakeholder’s needs
User Story
I want to
<do this>
I want to
<do this>
In order to
<achieve that>
As a
<customer>

VP/Director
Standardize
reporting metrics
Aggregate and
compare across
lines of business
User Story
I want to
<do this>
In order to
<achieve that>
As a
<customer>

VP/Director Work Manager
Standardize
reporting metrics
Ensure correct
calculations and
thorough review
Aggregate and
compare across
lines of business
Have confidence
in the rigor &
quality of my
team’s results
User Story
I want to
<do this>
In order to
<achieve that>
As a
<customer>

VP/Director Work Manager Data Analyst
Standardize
reporting metrics
Ensure correct
calculations and
thorough review
Rapidly complete
manual,
mechanical data
computations
Aggregate and
compare across
lines of business
Have confidence
in the rigor &
quality of my
team’s results
Invest time in
analysis and
insight generation
User Story
I want to
<do this>
In order to
<achieve that>
As a
<customer>

End-users themselves may not fully articulate needs as a workflow rather than discrete tasks
Data Analyst
• Find data
• Query data
• Clean data
• Calculate metrics
• Analyze results
• Debug & sanity check
• Seek help when
needed
• Iterate on analysis
• Share with manager
• Communicate findings
• Document process
• Be prepared for follow-ups
User Story
I want to
<do this>
In order to
<achieve that>
• Get the
information I need
• Uncover insights • Communicate findings
• Leave paper trail
As a
<customer>

Decision
Making
Validation
&
Monitoring
Modeling
Scenario
Analysis
At Capital One, cashflow analysis is integral to many interrelated pieces of business analytics
Documentation
& Governance

Decision
Making
Validation
&
Monitoring
Modeling
Scenario
Analysis
Documentation
& Governance
Database
System
BI Visualization
Tool
Legacy Statistical
Computing Platform
Legacy Statistical
Computing Platform
Legacy Statistical
Computing
Platform
FTP Client
FTP Client
Spreadsheet
Software
Spreadsheet
Software
Word Processor
Word Processor
Spreadsheet
Software
Presentation
Software
• Black box
• Limited capability
• Manual documentation
• Highly manual process
• System-specific
knowledge
• Slow iteration
Patchwork processes lead to inefficiency, poor documentation, and limited reproducibility

Decision
Making
Validation
&
Monitoring
Modeling
Scenario
Analysis
Building the end-to-end tidycf R package enabled an efficient and reproducible workflow
• Accessible code
• Extensible code
• Real-time
documentation
• Automated &
reproducible
• General versus system-
specific knowledge
• Rapid iteration

By treating analysis as product, analyst-developers improve quality on the immediate ask
while justifying business value of investing in rigorous development
Notebook Function Discovery
Function
Modularization
Process Discovery
Template, Vignette
Clean-Up
Analysis &
Insight Generation
Packaging as
Reproducible Tools

Much like open-source, internal tool development lends itself well to truly taking a user
perspective – without empathy interviews or A/B tests
Fake data is provided for illustrative purposes only and does not represent Capital One performance

Organically evolving the tidycf package while addressing business problems led to
efficient and empathetic development
Task:
Valuations
Process 1:
Data Validation
Process 2:
Data Exploration
Process n-1:
Model Validation
Process n+1 … z:
Analysis with Model
Framework 1:
Data Validation
Framework 2:
Data Exploration
Framework n-1:
Model Validation
Framework n+1 … z:
Analysis with Model
calc
functions
viz
functions
tbl
functions
… …
Process 3:
Model Building
Framework 3:
Model Building
Process n:
Model Intuition
Framework n:
Model Intuition
Business Problems R Markdown Templates R functions

Analyst developers know their own strengths and weakness and can build products that
empower users instead of patronizing them
Empathy
Empowerment
Engagement

Empathy alone cannot serve every need, so internal analytical tools must empower users to
extend analysis beyond cookie cutter frameworks and functionalities
Respect users
intelligence, but don’t
assume prescience
Avoid black-boxishness
(e.g. GUIs) and tool-
specific knowledge
Teach transferrable skills
by building off existing
frameworks

Empowerment can take many different forms such as lending a helping hand, being
transparent, and being flexible
RStudio IDE’s data importer and database connector generated code for any GUI features for
user edification and future reproducibility

tidycf embeds RMarkdown templates to empower users through package discoverability, R
immersion, and enterprise knowledge transfer
Code comments explain syntax and
suggest new functions to try
Text commentary facilitates knowledge
transfer of business context and intuition

Flexible internal tools integrate with broader ecosystems, like R’s tidyverse, to provide both
structure and flexibility

Instead of prescribing approaches, opinionated internal tools can help establish norms and
best practices while allowing for boundless creativity and generalizability
Data Validation
Exploratory Data Analysis
Model Validation
Model Analytics
(Multiple Modeling Steps)
…
Model Monitoring
raw
out1
out_t
out_t+1
model
model
out1
out2
out_t+1
model
R Markdown Templates Output DataInput Data
./data/
./analysis/
./output/
Directoryexternal
External Source
In tidycf, RMarkdown templates read and save
artifacts to the appropriate relative paths so all
users end up with a standardized repository

Analyst-driven development keeps tools relevant as empowered users help them to evolve
Empathy
Empowerment
Engagement

Empowered users with right incentives engage in a virtuous cycle – evolving tools informed
by business needs and constraints
Business Needs
Ad-Hoc AnalysisProductionalization

Engagement is the lifeblood of many open source projects and analytical tools
“The purpose of this site is to help other R users easily
find ggplot2 extensions that are coming in ‘fast and furious’
from the R community….
When Hadley announced the release of ggplot2 2.0.0,
perhaps the most exciting news was the addition of an
official extension mechanism…
This means that even when less development occurs in the
ggplot2 package itself, the community will continue to
release packages for graphical analysis that extend/solve
different requirements.”

Champion opportunities and celebrate success to engage user contribution and capture their
creations
Fake data is provided for illustrative purposes only and does not
represent Capital One performance
Opportunities
Appreciation
• Well-defined style guide,
CONTRIBUTING.md, and
process
• Issues with ideas, tags
• Vignettes/Examples
• Recognize & reward
• Bug reports, questions,
confusions, and
misunderstandings are
valuable feedback, too!

Community building and incentives alignment is essential to effective analyst-driven
development
Open Source Open Science Innersource
• Pull system
• Motivated by:
• Contributing to
community
• Building reputation,
credibility, presence
• Push system
• Motivated by:
• Requirements for
publication
• Concerned by:
• Time investment
• Losing ownership
• Pull with recognition,
acknowledgement as
valuable investment
• Push with norms and
requirements

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