BevIQ — Inventory Management for the Beverage Industry

Designing easy to consume, actionable reports for depletions and projections

Role

UX/UI Designer

Industry

Food & Beverage

Duration

3 months

BevIQ is an inventory management tool used by beverage distributors to track how products move across regions, accounts, and timeframes. It allows them to add distributors, sales reps, and distribution centers providing a clear picture of how each product performs in each region. It also helps them track individual sales rep performance and identify when and where to restock specific products.

While I worked at ilsa interactive (a software agency) I worked on many features for BevIQ, including the Mobile App. But the most interesting challenge I faced while working on this product was to tackle something at the heart of this system, the depletion and projection reports. Two deceptively simple features that directly influence forecasting, restocking, and sales strategy. When these reports aren’t clear or usable, distributors risk overstocking, running out of key products, or missing critical opportunities.

Together, these reports help distributors answer two fundamental questions:

What’s happening with my products right now? (Depletions)
What’s going to happen next? (Projections)

Stage 1. Understanding the problem and limitations

Designing these wasn’t just about laying out charts and tables. It was about transforming massive amounts of raw data into insights people could actually use to make decisions.

Most beverage distributors rely on long, exhausting Excel sheets. The key challenge was meeting them where they were while designing an experience that enabled quick, confident action.

The key challenge was designing reporting experiences that could:

Handle large, complex datasets without overwhelming users
Surface critical insights quickly for different roles (sales reps, managers, executives)
Support both historical analysis (depletion) and forward-looking decisions (projections)
Work seamlessly across desktop, tablet, and mobile

All of this needed to happen without the luxury of formal user testing, and within real product constraints.

Stage 2. Figuring it out

I began by understanding how distributors interpret both past performance and future risk:

What signals indicate a stock issue before it happens?
Which metrics decision-makers look for first?
How much control users want when exploring “what-if” scenarios?

From there, I designed a reporting system that balanced clarity, flexibility, and speed.

Stage 3. Designing without testing

Design decisions were shaped by practical limitations:

Tight delivery timelines meant prioritizing high-impact UX improvements over perfection
Development constraints required reusable components and predictable interaction patterns
Legacy data structures influenced how filtering, pagination, and exports could work

Rather than fight these constraints, I treated them as guardrails, designing solutions that were realistic to build and easy to maintain.

Without direct user testing, I relied heavily on domain knowledge from stakeholders:

Worked closely with the CEO and business analysts to understand how distributors evaluated performance and risk
Aligned with marketing and sales on what insights were most important during demos and client conversations

This ensured the reports reflected real business conversations, not theoretical use cases.

To avoid reinventing the wheel, I reviewed reporting patterns across:

Inventory and supply-chain tools
Sales analytics dashboards
Finance and forecasting products

This helped identify familiar interaction patterns (chart-first views, filter-driven exploration, export expectations) while spotting gaps particularly around scenario planning, which many tools treated as static or spreadsheet-only.

I applied usability heuristics to identify friction points:

Recognition over recall: surfaced key metrics (Days Until Out of Stock, Reorder Dates) instead of hiding them behind filters
Progressive disclosure: showed advanced options only when needed to reduce intimidation
Flexibility for different users: chart views for quick insight, tables for precision
Immediate feedback: inline filtering and real-time updates to keep users in flow

These principles guided decisions without needing validation-heavy processes.

Depletion reports focused on clarity and control quick filters, table/chart toggles, and responsive layouts
Projection reports introduced forward-looking thinking:
- A line chart comparing inventory vs. sales over time to reveal risk early
- Critical metrics surfaced up front so executives didn’t have to hunt
- A Projected Growth Rate slider for “what-if” scenario planning
- Export and save options to fit seamlessly into existing distributor workflows

Reflections

The reporting experience allowed users to:

Move easily between historical performance and future projections
Identify risks early and plan restocking with more confidence
Use reports as living tools rather than static exports

By grounding decisions in constraints, stakeholder insight, competitive norms, and UX heuristics, BevIQ’s reports supported both day-to-day operations and long-term planning, even without formal user testing.

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