Case Studies
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User Researcher + UX Designer
COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE
Before researching users, we first sought to understand the market they were navigating. Our competitive analysis examined leading compliance platforms to identify industry patterns, unmet user needs, and opportunities for differentiation.
INSIGHT
EVIDENCE
The majority competitors in this study relied on deep IT integration, creating major setup friction for low-tech or early-stage companies.
Integration/Complexity Barrier
SMB Gap
Enterprise-leaning tools dominate; none combine affordability, simple UX, and self-serve onboarding for smaller teams.
Most competitors have weak onboarding, dated interfaces, or overly technical workflows that reduce accessibility.
Almost all competitors hide pricing; most also lack plain-language education and in-product learning support.
UX Opportunities
Trust and Transparency
Complex workflows increased friction.
Technical terminology hindered understanding.
Onboarding lacked guidance and support.
Opportunities centered on clarity, education, and accessibility for SMBs.
Results
OPPORTUNITIES
Simpler Navigation
Embedded Learning
Plain Language
Guided Onboarding
Datahubz
Making Compliance Easy and Actionable from Day One
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
DataHubz centralizes and streamlines the security compliance lifecycle for SMBs. However, first-time users, often navigating complex frameworks and learning compliance in real time, needed more support and guidance to confidently move from setup to meaningful progress.
Problem
A step-by-step, actionable journey combining guided onboarding, clearer system feedback, and a more intuitive dashboard experience.
Solution
A step-by-step, actionable journey combining guided onboarding, clearer system feedback, and a more intuitive dashboard experience.
Solution
Validated the need for integrated guidance and deeper onboarding, and established a more intuitive, action-oriented workflow.
Outcome
UX Research Lead & Product Designer:
Discovery Research, Usability Testing, Synthesis, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Prototyping
My Role
RETROSPECTIVE
Adapt research to maintain momentum: When participant access stalled, I advocated for a heuristic evaluation to keep the team moving and generate actionable evidence.
Use research to build alignment: The evaluation uncovered usability issues while also providing the evidence needed to secure participants and demonstrate the value of deeper research.
Advocate for the research process: The experience reinforced that UX often requires building stakeholder alignment around how research happens before meaningful design progress can begin.
This project reinforced the value of a non-linear approach when navigating real-world constraints. As stakeholder readiness, participant access, and timelines shifted, I learned to adapt the research strategy while keeping the project moving forward.
High-severity issues appeared across multiple heuristics
Key Insights
The findings highlighted foundational usability gaps and set clear design priorities, which we would continue to build on throughout the research and iteration process.
Before speaking with users, we first needed to understand the product itself. A heuristic evaluation gave us an evidence-based starting point, helping identify usability issues to validate through research.
User control & freedom
Help & documentation
Aesthetic & minimalist design
Error Prevention
Match between system & real world
Error recovery
Visibility of
system status
Users lacked feedback and clarity
No clear indicators that data was updating
Status changes were easy to miss
Compliance language increased cognitive load
Heavy jargon made data difficult to interpret
Users relied on external resources to understand workflows
Onboarding and guidance were insufficient
Limited in-product help and learning support
Users had to self-navigate complex tasks
Dashboard overwhelm
Poor visual hierarchy made prioritization difficult
Limited customization and recovery from mistakes
THEMES
Participant recruiting was delayed, so I conducted a heuristic evaluation to keep momentum and identify glaring usability issues prior to interviews.
Objective
Team of 4 evaluated key workflows against Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics
Conducted four walkthroughs of the core dashboard experience
Documented recurring issues, severity, and recommendations
Methodology
HEURISTIC EVALUATION
DESIGN EXPLORATION
Early research revealed that uncertainty was the biggest barrier to progress. Our design explorations focused on shifting the experience from exploration to guided action.
Our sketches focused first on reshaping the dashboard hierarchy to guide action:
Prioritized action and strengthened hierarchy: offered clear next steps over static metrics
Help resources and tile customization: aligned content with user goals
LOW-FIDELITY
Information architecture was restructured to reduce friction:
Streamlined paths: removed redundant or competing flows
Clarified entry points: made key actions easier to identify
USER TESTING
User research validated the need for guided onboarding, clearer navigation, stronger feedback, and plain-language education, directly shaping the new user flow and design direction.
OPPORTUNITY
PAIN POINT
RECOMMENDATION
Personalize Dashboards for User Needs
Users struggle to find relevant info and resume in-progress work.
Customizable and role-based dashboards.
Improve Navigation & Task Clarity
Users lose their place and cannot tell what to do next.
Clear navigation (“start path”) and task completion indicators.
Clarify Compliance Terms & Concepts
Users do not understand compliance language or task meaning.
Educational resources and compliance terminology explanations.
Expand In-App Support & Guidance
Users lack help when they get stuck or confused in workflows.
Enhanced digital support and tooltips.
Grouping observations from the testing into themes revealed recurring patterns around navigation, feedback, terminology, onboarding, and emotional responses, turning raw data into actionable insights that informed the redesign.
Synthesis
Users struggled to align the product's workflows with their existing mental models. Unclear navigation, heavy terminology, and weak system feedback created high cognitive load and reduced confidence.
Key Insights
Understand how compliance managers experience onboarding, where confusion occurs, and what builds trust in the platform.
Objective
5 participants underwent interview and moderated usability tests
Participants accessed a demo environment and attempted compliance tasks
Captured pain points, moments of confusion, and confidence levels throughout the flow
Methodology
While the heuristic evaluation revealed where problems might exist, only user testing could tell us which challenges truly disrupted the experience.
MID-FIDELITY
From unclear → guided starting points:
Before: Early users lacked direction on where to begin
After iteration: Onboarding and the “What to Do Next” feature improved orientation
From heavy interpretation → clearer understanding:
Before: Initial interviews showed cognitive overload from jargon and dense content
After iteration: Updated layouts and tooltips improved understanding for 60% of users
From passive dashboard → perceived action hub:
Before: Previously, the dashboard felt informational
After iteration: Users now viewed it as a place to take action
From no support → embedded guidance (with limits):
Before: Earlier experience lacked help and documentation
After iteration: Added tooltips and guidance improved confidence
Step-by-step introduction to dashboard tools and metrics
Tile customization allows users to personalize their workspace
Tooltip definitions and links to supporting docs
Help/Search tab added to provide broad support
Early research revealed that uncertainty was the biggest barrier to progress. We responded by giving users clearer orientation, priorities, and next steps throughout the dashboard.
Our team expanded onboarding and enhanced dashboard interactions and content, transforming the experience into a more guided, supportive system that helps SMB users move from setup to progress.
Effective onboarding execution: 100% onboarding completion rate
Improved user understanding: 60% of users reported increased clarity with guided onboarding and tooltips
Increased user confidence: Significant lift in confidence across onboarding and key tasks
Reduced critical drop-offs: Identified and addressed major friction points, including document upload
60%
Improved Understanding
100%
Onboarding Completion
Overall
Increased User Confdience
IMPACT
DESIGN CHALLENGE
As an early stage AI-powered compliance platform, Datahubz sought to focus on making compliance simpler for SMBs, but first time user faced a steep learning curve. My team was tasked to improve usability and reduce friction within the onboarding and core workflow of the system. We wanted to create an intuitive experience that would progressively build user confidence.
Make cybersecurity compliance easier, faster, and more accessible for SMBs
BUSINESS GOAL
Compliance managers at with varying levels of technical expertise.
TARGET USER
Help users confidently complete onboarding, understand next steps, and stay within the platform throughout the compliance journey.
SUCCESS CRITERIA
IA
USABILITY II
We had transformed our research findings into a more guided experience, but the real test was whether users felt the difference. A second round of usability testing helped us evaluate where the new experience succeeded and where uncertainty remained.
Evaluate how well the design changes improved clarity and guidance.
Objective
15 participants completed moderated usability sessions
End-to-end tasks: onboarding/orientation, initiating compliance work, dashboard exploration, and navigation
Methodology
Key Insights:
Users navigated the redesigned experience more successfully, validating the overall direction.
USABILITY IMPROVED
Users continued to rely on explicit cues to understand where to begin and what to do next.
GUIDANCE STILL MATTERED
Ambiguous entry points and hover-dependent guidance created moments of hesitation, revealing opportunities for further refinement.
INTUITION GAP
OPPORTUNITIES FOR FURTHER ITERATION
While the redesign improved the overall experience, testing revealed several moments where users still had to stop and interpret the interface. We identified three opportunities for further iteration:
Competing CTAs still created moments of hesitation when starting tasks.
CLARIFY PRIMARY ACTIONS
Reliance on hover-based help limited discoverability of guidance.
SURFACE GUIDANCE
Some entry points and workflow locations remained ambiguous.
STRENGTHEN NAVIGATION
