Product design
Copy and paste: Fixing the small thing that affected every session
Users had been asking for years. The fix was simple. It just needed someone to finally prioritise it.
Context
The annual survey surfaced something simple but consistently important: for all the advanced features the product offered, users just wanted to paste a list of values and turn it into a group. The existing flow required manually adding items one by one or navigating through multiple steps, and although the problem was not technically complex, it had been deprioritised for years because it was not considered big or shiny. Mapping the current flow made the friction obvious and showed how a small change could remove it.
Challenge
The task was not technically complex but had been passed over repeatedly. The challenge was making the case for fixing something that looked small but affected nearly every user session.
Approach
Working closely with internal and external users, it became clear that pasting data directly into the interface was the most natural way for people to work. We surfaced this action directly in the report-building interface, allowing users to paste a dataset to create a new group or add to an existing one. The system verified which values existed and highlighted anything that did not, giving users immediate clarity without extra steps. The harder work was making the case to product and engineering that this warranted attention. I showed how fixing everyday user frustrations laddered directly back to the platform's core promises, and that ignoring them undermined the value we were trying to build.
Outcome
This change received some of the strongest praise from users. It removed years of friction, made group creation significantly faster, and demonstrated the impact of fixing the practical things people do every day. It also reminded the business of the value of actually listening to users, and this approach is now being carried forward into other flows across the platform.
Reflection
Not every improvement needs to be big. Sometimes the most meaningful changes are the ones that finally respect how people actually work.
Selected working artefacts from the project. Blurred intentionally to protect business context, shown to demonstrate the depth and shape of the work, not as polished deliverables.