Personas

Core Personas

• Application Developer: Focused on building and maintaining applications, requiring easy data access and fast queries.

• Data Scientist: Needed advanced analytics capabilities and tools like Python notebooks to process large datasets.

• IT Admin: Managed infrastructure, required robust monitoring, security controls, and efficient resource allocation.

• Data Engineer: Responsible for data pipelines and system performance, needing efficient data loading and optimization.

Information Architecture

The information architecture needed to support both high-level overviews for admins and detailed controls for developers. Key features were grouped based on user workflows, ensuring users could seamlessly navigate between resource management and advanced analytics. This structure reduced friction, especially for technical audiences handling large datasets.

Key features included:

• Workspace & Database Management

• Custom Dev Tools

• Data Loading

• Monitoring

• Access Controls

Design System

We built a custom design system based on Radix to ensure consistency between design and development across the platform.

Evaluating and Updating Components:
To maintain a high-quality user experience, we regularly evaluated the design system across three dimensions:

• User Experience: We identified areas where user flows could be improved by refining component behaviors and simplifying complex interactions. For example, we optimized form validation patterns to surface errors more clearly and reduce user friction.

• Code Quality: Collaborating closely with engineering, we prioritized updates that improved performance and component maintainability. This included refactoring core inputs and tables for better scalability with large datasets.

• Accessibility: We audited components to ensure compliance with WCAG standards, enhancing keyboard navigation and screen reader support. This work made the portal usable for a broader audience and improved overall usability for all users.

Design Principles

These principles guided decision-making and empowered designers to move quickly without constant user testing.

User Testing

I collaborated with our user researcher to establish a regular feedback process, ensuring our technical audience's needs were met:

1. New Employees: Each new hire tested the onboarding flow, providing feedback and fostering a culture of product improvement.

2. Customers: We recruited participants from annual surveys and in-app prompts to test prototypes.

3. External Participants: When needed, we engaged professional networks for additional feedback.

QA

I established a QA team to ensure the reliability of complex systems spanning multiple applications and integrations. This team also served as internal user testers to validate functionality under real-world conditions.