Case Study

Squad

2 Product Designers

6 Engineers

2 Product Manager

The problem 

Security and compliance teams are responsible for monitoring risks, managing vulnerabilities, responding to audits, and maintaining compliance across complex cloud environments. Yet the information they rely on is often scattered across multiple tools, forcing them to constantly switch contexts and manually track critical tasks. Through research, we discovered that this fragmented experience created significant cognitive burden and made it difficult for users to stay ahead of emerging risks. Our challenge was to design a unified dashboard that consolidated security insights, surfaced the most urgent actions, and helped users manage their responsibilities from a single, trusted source of truth.

Key personas:

Research & Discovery

Before defining the dashboard experience, we sought to understand how security and compliance teams managed their daily responsibilities across a growing ecosystem of tools and processes. Through stakeholder conversations, it became clear that research was essential to validate assumptions, uncover user needs, and align the team around a shared vision.

I developed and facilitated a research program focused on understanding existing workflows, pain points, and decision-making behaviors. We conducted interviews with Security and Compliance Focals and Leads, inviting stakeholders to observe sessions firsthand and build empathy for the challenges users faced. Participants walked us through their daily responsibilities and collaborated with us to envision their ideal dashboard experience.

Following the interviews, synthesis activities were conducted to identify recurring themes and opportunities. The research revealed that users were struggling with fragmented information, excessive context switching, and a heavy reliance on manual tracking methods to maintain compliance. Critical tasks, risks, and evidence collection activities were spread across multiple platforms, increasing cognitive load and making it difficult to maintain confidence that nothing had been overlooked.

“So lack of automation, lack of evidence collection to help feed these IDRs automatically, puts the burden back on the same people answering all the audits at the same time as the development team needs to also deliver on their business commitments for future deliveries. So at one point, we're going to break and it's going to be ugly.” – Research participant

Through research playbacks and collaborative workshops, I helped stakeholders connect these user challenges to product opportunities. The findings ultimately shaped our dashboard strategy, prioritized feature development, and aligned the team around a clear objective: creating a centralized experience that reduces operational burden and enables users to act with greater confidence and efficiency.

Outcome

Following multiple rounds of collaboration, synthesis, and usability testing, we delivered a validated dashboard experience tailored to the Security Focal and Lead personas. The final design consolidated critical insights, surfaced high-priority actions, and provided users with a centralized view of the work required to maintain a secure and compliant environment. The dashboard is now live within IBM Cloud.

Impact

  • 83% of participants preferred the new dashboard experience over their existing workflow.

  • Reduced cognitive load associated with managing security and compliance activities across
    multiple platforms.

  • Delivered a scalable foundation for future dashboard experiences and personas.

Complexity to Clarity: Operations Dashboard

My role

I led the discovery and design strategy for this initiative, working closely with product managers, engineers, and stakeholders to define user needs and shape the vision for a unified security operations experience. My responsibilities included planning and facilitating user research, conducting synthesis activities, leading prioritization workshops, and guiding cross-functional teams through design-thinking practices. By connecting user insights to business objectives, I helped align stakeholders around a shared roadmap and establish a research-driven foundation for the dashboard.