Dynamic Lists Redesign

Empowering Teams with Intuitive Audience Segmentation

Empowering Teams with Intuitive Audience Segmentation

Opportunity

The Dynamic List Builder is a vital tool for Carta's Marketing and Newsroom teams, enabling targeted campaigns and audience segmentation that reaches millions of readers. However, the original interface was creating significant barriers that impacted daily workflows and team productivity.

The core problems included a complex, unintuitive interface that was difficult for non-technical users to navigate, heavy reliance on developers for routine tasks, and nested logic that was hard to scan and understand even for experienced users. Users had no way to preview queries or understand how lists influenced other campaigns, creating significant risk of costly mistakes affecting millions of readers.

My goal was to redesign the Dynamic List Builder to empower all users—whether technical experts or occasional users—to build, verify, and manage lists confidently and efficiently. The key objectives were:

  • Reduce dependency on engineering support for routine list management

  • Improve visibility and transparency into list logic and usage

  • Streamline the interface to make complex queries more approachable

  • Enhance confidence in list building across different user skill levels

Success would be measured by reduced support requests, increased user confidence, and more efficient campaign targeting workflows across both teams. (click for a before & after)

Approach

To understand the core issues, I conducted extensive research that went beyond typical user feedback. I reviewed survey data from our teams, but I also took the extra step of shadowing users—both experienced and casual—to see exactly where they were getting stuck.

Research and Discovery I interviewed key stakeholders like the Manager of Email Retention and Analytics, along with Carta's engineering team, to understand the technical constraints and business requirements. I also facilitated workshops across different teams to surface common frustrations, overlapping workarounds, and essential needs. This comprehensive approach gave me a clear view of pain points, critical features, and areas where the experience could be dramatically improved.

Key Insights Through my research, I discovered that even seasoned users struggled with understanding query logic and impacts. There was no quick way to preview queries or see how lists influenced other campaigns, which added unnecessary friction to their daily workflows. With these insights in mind, I designed two new features to address these core issues.

Opportunity

The Dynamic List Builder is a vital tool for Carta's Marketing and Newsroom teams, enabling targeted campaigns and audience segmentation that reaches millions of readers. However, the original interface was creating significant barriers that impacted daily workflows and team productivity.

The core problems included a complex, unintuitive interface that was difficult for non-technical users to navigate, heavy reliance on developers for routine tasks, and nested logic that was hard to scan and understand even for experienced users. Users had no way to preview queries or understand how lists influenced other campaigns, creating significant risk of costly mistakes affecting millions of readers.

My goal was to redesign the Dynamic List Builder to empower all users—whether technical experts or occasional users—to build, verify, and manage lists confidently and efficiently. The key objectives were:

  • Reduce dependency on engineering support for routine list management

  • Improve visibility and transparency into list logic and usage

  • Streamline the interface to make complex queries more approachable

  • Enhance confidence in list building across different user skill levels

Success would be measured by reduced support requests, increased user confidence, and more efficient campaign targeting workflows across both teams. (click for a before & after)

Approach

To understand the core issues, I conducted extensive research that went beyond typical user feedback. I reviewed survey data from our teams, but I also took the extra step of shadowing users—both experienced and casual—to see exactly where they were getting stuck.

Research and Discovery I interviewed key stakeholders like the Manager of Email Retention and Analytics, along with Carta's engineering team, to understand the technical constraints and business requirements. I also facilitated workshops across different teams to surface common frustrations, overlapping workarounds, and essential needs. This comprehensive approach gave me a clear view of pain points, critical features, and areas where the experience could be dramatically improved.

Key Insights Through my research, I discovered that even seasoned users struggled with understanding query logic and impacts. There was no quick way to preview queries or see how lists influenced other campaigns, which added unnecessary friction to their daily workflows. With these insights in mind, I designed two new features to address these core issues.

New Features

Summary View

The Summary View feature was created to address a major usability gap: users had no way to see their entire dynamic list at a glance. Building complex queries often meant digging through layers of nested logic, making it difficult to catch errors or understand how conditions were structured. Summary View solved this by offering a clear, high-level overview of the full list logic in one place, allowing users to quickly scan, verify, and navigate their queries with confidence.

When users spotted something that looked off, clicking the edit button would take them directly to that area of the list, dramatically decreasing the need to go back and sift through lengthy nested logic.

List Details Tab

The List Details Tab added much-needed transparency by showing users exactly where their lists were used across campaigns, workflows, and other lists. This feature allowed them to assess the potential impact of any changes before making edits, troubleshoot issues more efficiently, and validate membership data. It provided visibility that fostered more confident decision-making and reduced reliance on engineering support for routine inquiries.

Result

Since implementing these updates, users now feel significantly more confident and empowered when building lists. The immediate improvements include:

  • Users can see and access relevant information quickly without engineering support

  • Complex logic can be reviewed with ease through the Summary View

  • Clear visibility into list usage across campaigns reduces risk of unintended impacts

  • Both power users and occasional users can work more independently and efficiently

Power users can now create and verify intricate lists more efficiently, while occasional users can easily find the information they need without getting lost in complex nested logic. The redesign has made the Dynamic List Builder more intuitive, reliable, and aligned with user workflows.

The overall impact has been faster, more accurate campaign targeting and a smoother experience for everyone involved. Teams can now focus on strategic audience segmentation rather than troubleshooting interface issues, leading to more effective campaigns and reduced dependency on engineering resources.

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Approach

When I took on this project, I knew it was no small undertaking. Our users had been unhappy with this feature for years and relied heavily on complicated workarounds and developer help in building dynamic lists. While this project came with lengthy survey data from our Marketing and Newsroom teams, I also made a point to conduct my own user interviews. I shadowed Marketing and Newsroom power users, new users and folks who only had to hop into the tool on occasion. In addition, I interviewed our Manager of Email Retention and Analytics, as well as the developers on the Carta team who were on call when our users needed help. I wanted a 360º view of every pain point, which aspects of the feature were critical and of highest priority, as well as taking note of any aspects that no longer served our users.

In addition, I held workshops to surface overlap among teams when it came to workarounds, pain points, and confusion. Every team at The Post had different needs for their dynamic lists, but every team had one thing in common: massive frustration.

Through my research, I found even the most experienced users relied on workarounds and struggled to troubleshoot issues. There was no quick way to preview queries or understand how a list impacted other campaigns, adding unnecessary friction to daily workflows. One mistake could affect millions of readers and subscribers. I set out to redesign the experience to be more intuitive, readable, and aligned with how users actually work. Adding a couple new features, removing irrelevant data, and creating a new and improved interface.