Redesigning a mission-critical command center homepage to surface urgent signals faster across a complex, multi-product platform
Project Overview
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Reduced access to critical alerts from 6 steps to 1, improving speed and clarity in high-stakes workflows
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Reimagined the homepage as an operational command surface rather than a static entry point
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Designed a scalable, cross-product system enabling real-time visibility and faster decision-making
My Role
UX Designer
Timeline
June 2025 - Aug 2025
Tools
Figma, JIRA
Collaboration
Product managers, designers, engineers
Methods & Frameworks
Qualitative Interviews, Research Synthesis, Affinity Mapping
Example, Source : Sonatus
Product & Company Context
Sonatus provides enterprise-grade software used by automotive OEMs to manage vehicle configurations and system operations at scale.
The Command Center homepage functions as a central operational workspace, where engineering teams:
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Define and manage vehicle policies
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Track deployments and platform health
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Surface alerts, failures, and critical system events
The Problem
The existing homepage was a static "welcome mat" that offered no real-time value.
Sonatus’s platform is organized around it's three primary products to manage vehicle software policies, but the information architecture was deeply siloed, it creates friction when users need to monitor system health or respond to issues across products.
Existing homepage, Source: Sonatus
High Friction
Critical alerts (like failed deployments) were buried 6 levels deep inside individual product pages.
Zero Visibility
There was no centralized way to see "System Health" at a glance.
Cognitive Overload
Users had to memorize complex navigation paths to find frequent information.
Old Workflow: 6 Clicks to reach critical errors.
Research
Identifying the "Dashboard Gap"
Rather than broad discovery, research focused on how users accessed critical information during real workflows.
Methods:
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Stakeholder Interviews
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Product walkthroughs
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Navigation audits across products
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Comparative analysis of operational dashboards
Key Insight:
Users didn’t struggle with features — they struggled with remembering where critical information lived across products.
Why this mattered:
For teams managing live vehicle systems, delayed access to alerts increases operational risk and slows decision-making.
If the homepage surfaced vehicle status and failed deployments upfront, it would eliminate a lot of unnecessary navigation.
- Andrew Mander
(Sr. Engineer)
Show critical alerts, campaigns pending approvals, things that demand attention.
- Girija Joshi
(Sr. QA)
The Pivot
Overcoming Technical Limitations
The Constraint
Ideally, the system would auto-detect a user's role (e.g., Manager vs. Engineer) to serve a personalized view.
However, backend API limitations prevented automated role detection in the current release cycle.
The Solution
A widget-based architecture to solve this without new backend infrastructure, I designed a user-configurable dashboard.
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Old concept: System guesses what the user needs (Technically impossible).
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New concept: User "pins" what they need (Technically feasible).
Research Synthesis
Affinity Mapping
Ideation
Understanding the User Flow
Solution
A "Single Pane of Glass"
The solution introduces a composable widget library that aggregates data from all three sub-products into a unified view. Instead of a static layout, the homepage is built from customizable cards that users can adapt to their workflows.
⚠️ Critical Alert Cards
Purpose: Immediate Triage.
Function: Instantly surfaces high-priority failures (e.g., "Deployment Failed") to the top of the feed so users don't have to dig for errors.
📊 Insight & Status Cards
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Purpose: Monitoring.
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Function: Visual summaries of system health, such as "Online vs. Offline Vehicles"
⚡ Productivity Cards
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Purpose: Efficiency.
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Function: Includes a "Recently Visited" module that deep-links users to their last active task and an "Integrated Help"card for contextual documentation.
Prototype Walkthrough
The prototype below demonstrates how the homepage evolves from Day 1 to Day 30 — showing how engineers can customize the dashboard over time by adding, rearranging, and prioritizing widgets based on their workflows.
Faster alert discovery
Reduced cognitive load
Improved workflow continuity
Outcomes & Validation
The redesigned homepage was validated through prototype walkthroughs and usability testing with engineering and product stakeholders, focused on alert discovery, navigation effort, and cross-product awareness.
Reflection
What I Learned
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Architecture > UI: This project taught me that "pretty UI" cannot fix broken information architecture. We had to fix the structure of the data flow first.
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Designing for Constraints: I learned how to propose solutions (like the user-configurable widget model) that respect engineering limitations while still solving the user's problem.
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Cross-Functional Influence: Interviewing stakeholders from QA to Cloud Backend gave me the confidence to facilitate design discussions across engineering teams.