A payments dashboard merchants actually understand.
How Ledger replaced a spreadsheet-shaped dashboard with a focused, decision-first interface — cutting support tickets and turning data into something merchants trust.
The brief, the people it's for, and what we set out to change.
The data was all there. The understanding wasn't.
Ledger's original dashboard showed merchants everything — every transaction, fee, and payout in one dense table. The result was a tool people respected but rarely used, and a support queue full of questions the product was already answering.
- A single decision-first overview that answers the big question first.
- Charts designed for glanceability, not completeness.
- Drill-downs that reveal detail only when it's asked for.
The goal was never more data. It was the confidence to act on the data already there.
Why the status quo was quietly failing the people who relied on it every day.
Everything, all at once
The interface treated every piece of data as equally important, so nothing was. Merchants couldn't tell at a glance whether the week was good or bad, and reached for support — or a spreadsheet — instead.
No clear answer to 'how am I doing?'
Payout timing was buried and frequently misread.
Charts optimized for accuracy, not comprehension.
The core moves that reframed the problem and made the product feel obvious.
How we solved it.
Lead with the decision
A single overview answers the merchant's first question — net position this week, trend, and what's coming — before any detail competes for attention.
Charts you can read in a glance
We rebuilt the data-viz language around comparison and trend, using restraint and a single accent to mark what matters.
Detail on demand
Progressive drill-downs keep the surface calm while making every underlying transaction one click away when it's needed.
“We used to explain the dashboard on every onboarding call. Now merchants get it on their own — the redesign quietly removed an entire category of confusion.”
The work that held up from research through release.
From audit to a coherent reporting surface
Audit & research
- Heuristic + analytics audit
- Diary study with 14 merchants
- Support-ticket taxonomy
Product design
- Decision-first overview
- Rebuilt charting language
- Progressive drill-downs
Data visualization
- Accessible chart kit
- Defined empty + loading states
- Documented usage rules
What changed once it was in people's hands.
The data-viz kit standardized 20+ chart instances across the product on one accessible palette.
2.4× — Weekly active merchants (within six months)
92% — Task success (in usability testing)
Audit
Mapped the dashboard's failure modes against real tickets.
Reframe
Defined the decision-first overview and chart principles.
Build
Shipped the chart kit and rebuilt core surfaces.
Result
−38% support tickets, 2.4× weekly active merchants.
Curious about the details?
I can walk you through the data-viz decisions and the trade-offs behind them.