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Designing Favorite Reports
Lightspeed POS
Helping merchants quickly access the reports they use most in Lightspeed Analytics
My role
Sole Product Designer on the Lightspeed Analytics team, responsible for designing reporting experiences and tools across the Analytics product
Team
1 PM, 7 Engineers, 1 Support Specialist, 1 Designer (myself)
Timeframe
Design process : 2 weeks
Production : 4 weeks
Overview
The All Reports page is one of the most frequently used areas of Lightspeed Analytics. Merchants use it to monitor their business through both built-in reports such as Sales, Inventory, and Sell Through and custom reports they create themselves.
As merchants created more custom reports over time, the list became increasingly difficult to navigate. Frequently used reports were buried among dozens of others, making it slower to find the information they needed.
Through support tickets and conversations with our Support team, we learned that merchants were spending unnecessary time searching through long report lists and wanted a faster way to access the reports they relied on most.
How might we help merchants quickly find the reports they use every day without adding more complexity to the reports page?
Usability Issues
The existing experience treated every report equally, regardless of how frequently it was used. As the report library grew, merchants experienced several usability challenges:
→ Frequently used reports became buried in long lists.
→ Merchants had to repeatedly search or scroll to find the same reports.
→ As more reports were created, the page became increasingly overwhelming.
Rather than redesigning the reports page, I wanted to improve the existing workflow while keeping it familiar for current users.
Exploring Solutions
I explored several ways to make reports easier to access.
Option 1 — Recently Viewed
Showing recently opened reports would reduce some searching, but recent activity doesn't always reflect what merchants consider important. A report viewed once isn't necessarily one that merchants want quick access to every day.
Option 2 — Favorites (Selected)
Favoriting reports gives merchants complete control over which reports matter most to them. It also fits naturally into the existing workflow, requiring minimal learning while making frequently used reports significantly easier to access.
Final Design
To help merchants quickly access the reports they use most, I introduced three improvements within the existing Reports experience:
Favorite Reports Section
I introduced a Favorite Reports section at the top of the page where merchants can pin the reports they use most often. To keep the interface clean and flexible, the section is collapsible, giving users quick access to their favorites without permanently taking up valuable screen space.
Pinned Favorites
Favorited reports are automatically surfaced at the top of the reports table, reducing the need to scroll through a growing list of reports.
Report Category Tabs
I introduced category tabs to organize reports by function, such as Sales & Inventory, Employee Performance, and Marketing. This helps merchants narrow their search and provides a scalable structure as the report library grows.
Thoughts
While designing this feature, I found myself comparing the Reports page to a Yellow Pages directory. When people needed to find a specific number, they often used bookmarks, sticky notes, or highlighted important pages for quick access. This reminded me that people naturally create shortcuts for information they use frequently. The Favorite Reports section and pinned reports were designed around the same principle, helping merchants create their own shortcuts within a growing report library.
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