Rival
An inside look at the benchmarking engine Entertact built to turn product research into buildable decisions.
Rival
An inside look at the benchmarking engine Entertact built to turn product research into buildable decisions.
Rival
An inside look at the benchmarking engine Entertact built to turn product research into buildable decisions.
What Rival is
THE PROBLEM
Rival is a benchmarking and analysis tool that turns any product experience into a structured user flow and a full UX analysis, so you can measure whether something is worth building before you build it. Its purpose is simple: speed up the slowest, most manual part of product design, UX research, and analysis. Making it easier to study how the best UX practices actually apply to whatever you're building. This is the story of how it went from a small screen recorder to a decision engine, and what it can do today.
Rival first Design UX
THE PROBLEM
The main Issue with the platform was that every new customer waited on a MetricWorks engineer to run onboarding and configure the platform before anyone saw value. The business goal was set from the start: full self-serve. That meant sales couldn't scale past engineering capacity, every deal added internal cost instead of margin, and enterprise buyers evaluating the platform saw software that behaved like a service. The product worked, as long as someone from the company was in the room.
Structure of how it use to work manually
THE PROBLEM
The main Issue with the platform was that every new customer waited on a MetricWorks engineer to run onboarding and configure the platform before anyone saw value. The business goal was set from the start: full self-serve. That meant sales couldn't scale past engineering capacity, every deal added internal cost instead of margin, and enterprise buyers evaluating the platform saw software that behaved like a service. The product worked, as long as someone from the company was in the room.
Structure of how it use to work manually
THE PROBLEM
The main Issue with the platform was that every new customer waited on a MetricWorks engineer to run onboarding and configure the platform before anyone saw value. The business goal was set from the start: full self-serve. That meant sales couldn't scale past engineering capacity, every deal added internal cost instead of margin, and enterprise buyers evaluating the platform saw software that behaved like a service. The product worked, as long as someone from the company was in the room.
Structure of how it use to work manually
What we found
The audit surfaced issues at every level, from cosmetic inconsistencies to structural confusion about where core settings lived.
Interface spoke engineer, not user
Setup demanded hidden knowledge
Mistakes cost too much to explore
Software behaving like a service
No design system existed
Dependency was self-protection
What we found
The audit surfaced issues at every level, from cosmetic inconsistencies to structural confusion about where core settings lived.
Interface spoke engineer, not user
Setup demanded hidden knowledge
Mistakes cost too much to explore
Software behaving like a service
No design system existed
Dependency was self-protection
What we found
The audit surfaced issues at every level, from cosmetic inconsistencies to structural confusion about where core settings lived.
Interface spoke engineer, not user
Setup demanded hidden knowledge
Mistakes cost too much to explore
Software behaving like a service
No design system existed
Dependency was self-protection
What Changed
Every screen and state was documented into a working system. Engineers now ship consistent UI at speed.
Create a guided 5-step flow
Rebuilt so hierarchy, spacing, and data visualization signal the same rigor as the measurement engine behind them
Interact With demo
Data / Default
Redesign Synthetic control setup
Each critical choice made visible, confirmable, and safe to get right, so a marketer can configure an experiment a data scientist used to babysit.
Interact With demo
Synthetic Control / Default
Create a Monitor view for real time Data
Live performance across channels, countries, and experiments, density without noise, operable alone.
Interact With demo
Monitor / Default
What Changed
Every screen and state was documented into a working system. Engineers now ship consistent UI at speed.
Create a guided 5-step flow
Rebuilt so hierarchy, spacing, and data visualization signal the same rigor as the measurement engine behind them
Interact With demo
Data / Default
Redesign Synthetic control setup
Each critical choice made visible, confirmable, and safe to get right, so a marketer can configure an experiment a data scientist used to babysit.
Interact With demo
Synthetic Control / Default
Create a Monitor view for real time Data
Live performance across channels, countries, and experiments, density without noise, operable alone.
Interact With demo
Monitor / Default
What Changed
Every screen and state was documented into a working system. Engineers now ship consistent UI at speed.
Create a guided 5-step flow
Rebuilt so hierarchy, spacing, and data visualization signal the same rigor as the measurement engine behind them
Redesign Synthetic control setup
Each critical choice made visible, confirmable, and safe to get right, so a marketer can configure an experiment a data scientist used to babysit.
Create a Monitor view for real time Data
Live performance across channels, countries, and experiments, density without noise, operable alone.
The numbers
One system across every surface a buyer touches:
Before
After
New client onboarding
Engineer-led, 15 minutes each
Self-serve, guided flow
Experiment setup
Staff-assisted
Run directly by client teams
Design foundation
No system, engineer-built screens
Documented system, up to 3 features/week
Features live
0 designed
10+ shipped
The numbers
One system across every surface a buyer touches:
Before
After
New client onboarding
Engineer-led, 15 minutes each
Self-serve, guided flow
Experiment setup
Staff-assisted
Run directly by client teams
Design foundation
No system, engineer-built screens
Documented system, up to 3 features/week
Features live
0 designed
10+ shipped
The numbers
One system across every surface a buyer touches:
Before
After
New client onboarding
Engineer-led, 15 minutes each
Self-serve, guided flow
Experiment setup
Staff-assisted
Run directly by client teams
Design foundation
No system, engineer-built screens
Documented system, up to 3 features/week
Features live
0 designed
10+ shipped
"Incredible design team. They effortlessly transform our vision into award-winning designs"
Currently Active
Chris Hoyt
CEO Co-Founder
"Incredible design team. They effortlessly transform our vision into award-winning designs"
Currently Active
Chris Hoyt
CEO Co-Founder
"Incredible design team. They effortlessly transform our vision into award-winning designs"
Currently Active
Chris Hoyt
CEO Co-Founder
What's Next
Book a meeting and we can start a 5-day audit to see the areas where we need to Improve, add and change in your product.
What's Next
Book a meeting and we can start a 5-day audit to see the areas where we need to Improve, add and change in your product.