MATLAB Plot Viewing Experience
Improving the experience of viewing and arranging plots for a better layout.
I led the design of upcoming plot viewing experience in MATLAB.
Product
MATLAB
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What I did
Product Design
Research and Benchmarking
Stakeholder Management
My role
Design lead
Timeline
Nov 2023 - Feb 2024
Background
MATLAB empowers engineers and scientists with data analysis and visualization tools.
A core workflow involves generating multiple plots, but the default behavior stacked them, hindering simultaneous viewing. Manual rearrangement was inefficient, frustrating, and stressful.
New Feature Update
To address this challenge, the team decided to introduce a new plot viewing experience with:
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Tabbed View: Plots displayed in separate tabs within a single window for easy management.
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Tiled View: Plots arranged in a user-selectable grid for comprehensive viewing.
Usability Testing Insights
We performed usability tests to understand users' prespective around this feature and found:
Success
Users loved viewing their plots in tabbed and tiled views, significantly improving their workflow.
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Pain Points:
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The menu itself was cluttered with redundant options and confusing terminology.
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The option to switch layouts was hidden within the context menu, making it difficult to find for new users and even experienced users.
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Setting up the tiled view was unclear.
Goal
"Empower users to effortlessly switch between layouts."
Benchmarking Study
I benchmarked popular applications to understand how they handled tab, plots and grid layouts and explored various solutions.
Solution
Redesigning the Context Menu
After multiple rounds of discussions, we decided on redesigning the context menu.
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Leveraging users' existing mental model of the three-dot menu, I redesigned it with:
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One-click layout switching: The system automatically determined the optimal layout for the plots.
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Reduced clutter: Removal of unnecessary options.
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Improved organization: Grouping global and local actions for clarity.
"Every solution is a triumph over failed attempts."
Here are some failed ideas that we didn't go ahead with.
Failed Idea 1
View Tab
A dedicated toolbar tab offered future expandability but deviated from the existing MATLAB experience.
Failed Idea 2
Document Toolbar
This new element provided clear functionality for view control but required significant development effort.
Failed Idea 3
Switch in Menu
A button switch within the three-dot menu was rejected due to codebase limitations that impacted multiple teams.
What I Learned
Multi-team Impact
Considering the impact on multiple teams honed my negotiation skills to achieve a solution acceptable to all.
Learning from Experience
Consulting with developers and experienced team members deepened my understanding of user needs.
Impact of Decisions
Recognizing the long-term product impact of design decisions fostered a big-picture perspective.
Balancing Users VS Devs.
This project highlighted the importance of considering both user needs and development limitations.
Next Steps
​Once the redesign menu is tested and launched, future iterations may include:
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Keyboard shortcuts: Offering personalization through user-defined shortcuts.
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Custom plot layouts: Empowering users to design and save layouts for specific workflows.
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And many more. Phew! You never know.
