SUMMER INTERNSHIP AT DE SHAW
Role
Interaction designer (Solo)
Domain
Fintech | Enterprise Software
Duration
7 weeks
Non disclosure
This work showcase is a record of my internship project, focusing exclusively on the UX process and resulting design solutions. All data, metrics, and screenshots are blurred, generalized, filtered, or altered to protect proprietary information and honor the NDA.
About internship
During summer 2024, I worked as an interaction designer at D. E. Shaw & Co., a leading global hedge fund known for its expertise in quantitative trading.
My time at D. E. Shaw was highly collaborative and intellectually rigorous, focused on delivering a UX that would provide technical teams with maximum efficiency and system clarity.
Problem statement
"The Coresight application suffered from a cluttered, data-dense UI and broken information hierarchy, making complex workflows difficult for Ops/Dev stakeholders to identify and address system problems quickly. My project was to redesign and simplify the UX across the platform, including creating a new mobile version, to enable seamless, on-the-go analysis and rapid action."
What is CoreSight?
Monitor
Alert
Analyze
Act
Coresight is a real-time monitoring tool used by the firm's technical teams (Ops/Dev) to track the status of trading and support applications. Essentially, it's a dashboard that lets users see the health of critical systems as it happens.
PROBLEMS
Cluttered UI and Complex Workflows Slowed User Actions
Users couldn't quickly pinpoint critical problems.
Complex workflows required too many steps to take critical action.
The interface was overwhelmingly tough for new users.
Simple tasks were either impossible or too complex for users to figure out without assistance from support.
Off-hours monitoring wasn’t possible - needed a mobile version.
Screenshots from old UI
THE SOLUTION
Solving the Clutter Crisis: An Intuitive, Actionable UX
Status Alerts
Resource Detail View
Key Detail View Features
All Resources Tab
*Designed for 27 inch monitor used by Devs/Ops
Mobile Version
Design process
1
Understanding
2
Analysis
Affinity Mapping
Personas
Journey Mapping
3
Design
Ideation
Info. Architecture
Wireframes
Final Screens
Prototyping
4
User testing
Stakeholder Feedback
Team Reviews
Design Iterations
Understanding
Auditing the system and User Workflows
Glimpse of content audit
Secondary Research
Focus:
User/Tool Context: Understood the Coresight's functionality and who the core users were and how their workflows look like.
System Usability: Conducted Heuristic Analysis to understand the existing application's usability position and current state.
Market Gaps: Analyzed competitor tools to determine where the product lacked in features and workflow efficiency.
Top Insights:
Confusing Architecture: The overall product structure was highly confusing, making it difficult to determine where key actions or processes were located.
High Barrier to Entry: The application was so cluttered and complex that the barrier for entry was excessively high for new or infrequent users.
Broken Hierarchy: Essential information was presented without any hierarchy, forcing users to learn multiple layers of unnecessary context just to understand basic functions.
Primary Research
5 user interviews
3 KT sessions with team
4 Stakeholder Interviews
Focus:
Workflow Mapping: Contextually and systematically map the users' current, complex workflows for alert handling and problem resolution.
Pain Points: Identify key usability barriers, specifically regarding information overload and the difficulty of taking critical action.
Mobile Needs: Define the essential subset of features and data required for a functional, on-the-go mobile monitoring experience.
Top Insights:
Inefficient Action: The existing system required an unacceptable amount of clicks and steps to perform core tasks, severely hindering efficiency.
Data Scarcity/Excess: Users wasted time either searching for critical data hidden within clutter or dealing with excessive, non-relevant information.
Wasted Time: Due to poor hierarchy and documentation, users frequently had to navigate multiple systems or create Jira issues to find answers, resulting in significant wasted time.
Mandatory Mobile: Off-hours monitoring was confirmed as a mandatory use case, proving the necessity of a dedicated, simplified mobile application for rapid assessment. Although, there was a constraint that the app must be on web, and not an app.
Design Phase
From Concept to Clarity: Ideation, Wireframes, and High-Fidelity Output
Ideation Sketches & Wireframes
Prototype
testing and iterations
Rapid Validation: Utilizing RITE to Converge on Final Solutions
I defined this phase using the Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation (RITE) methodology. To maximize efficiency, I conducted frequent, small-scale usability tests with users and had meetings with developers and stakeholders. Any critical usability flaws were immediately fixed in the high-fidelity prototype and re-tested as quickly as possible.
Key Iterative Decisions:
Strategic Feature Integration: I pivoted from building a new data analyzer to integrating existing internal tool for data visualization ("Mirror"). This decision saved significant development time and focused Coresight on its core strength: real-time alert handling.
Usability & Efficiency Refinement: I implemented multiple UI changes to speed up workflows, including revising the Problem Status Cards, optimizing filtering/searching, and simplifying the bulk action selection process.
Logical Problem Grouping: I redesigned the resource display to group problems based on their technical interrelation, correcting a hierarchy flaw. This grouping allowed me to integrate AI-driven insights based on that correlation, significantly speeding up the analysis.
Non disclosure
This work showcase is a record of my internship project, focusing exclusively on the UX process and resulting design solutions. All data, metrics, and screenshots are blurred, generalized, filtered, or altered to protect proprietary information and honor the NDA.
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