Michael McGillivray
All work

Readersight

Readersight - Flagship App

A feature-rich analytics product for media companies, reimagining data as graphs, widgets and an A/B story tester. Adopted by big Irish brands like RTÉ.

Readersight product design case study hero image
  • RTÉ Among the brands that adopted it
  • A/B Story Tester A standout CTR feature

The Brief

Context

Readersight is a user-analytics tool for media companies. As Design Lead, I led the design and release of a feature-rich product that turned reader data into something editors could act on.

Read the detail

Responsibilities

  • Lead product design for a media analytics platform.
  • Turn raw reader data into clear, actionable insight.
  • Help the product earn adoption by major media brands.

Media companies sit on huge amounts of reader behaviour data, but data only matters if it changes a decision. The product's job was to surface the right signals, clearly enough that an editor could act on them in the moment.

Discovery

Reimagining the data

I brought new feature ideas directly to the CEO, based on reimagining how the underlying data could be presented and put to work.

  • Proposed new features grounded in reader data.
  • Reframed analytics around editorial decisions, not vanity metrics.
Read the detail

Rather than just visualising what was already tracked, I looked for the features hiding in the data, the views and tools that would let media teams test ideas and understand their audience in new ways.

Structure

IA & user flows

I shaped how the analytics were structured and navigated, so a dense, data-rich product stayed approachable for everyday editorial users.

  • Organised dashboards and reporting for clarity.
  • Designed flows that fit how editorial teams work.

Craft

Data visualisation & A/B tester

I designed the product's feature set, including graphs, configurable widgets, and an A/B story tester that let clients trial different titles and images to find the version with the best click-through.

  • Designed data graphs and configurable dashboard widgets.
  • Created an A/B story tester for headlines and images.
  • Helped editors optimise for click-through rate.
Read the detail

The A/B story tester was a standout: it let media teams write multiple variations of a story (different titles and images) and test them for the optimal click-through rate. It turned a gut-feel editorial decision into something measurable.

Live analytics dashboard, showing real-time users, engagement, a traffic-source chart, a world map of active users, device breakdown and a trending stories leaderboard
A selection of screens from the Readersight platform. Scroll each screen, or use the arrows to move between them.

Enablement

Training & mentorship

Alongside the product work, I trained and mentored junior designers, helping raise the standard of the work around me.

  • Mentored junior designers on the team.
  • Shared standards and ways of working.

Impact

Outcome

A feature-rich analytics product that shipped and earned adoption from big Irish brands like RTÉ, with a distinctive feature set built on a reimagining of the data.

  • A released, feature-rich analytics product.
  • Adoption by major Irish media brands, including RTÉ.
  • A standout A/B story-testing capability.