Reliable data is critical to retailers as more customers forgo physical stores in favor of digital shopping, yet point-of-sale (POS) tools are vastly unprepared to keep pace with evolving technology. That’s where Jumpmind excels: their mission is to create POS and data transmission software tailored to fit highly specific and complex use cases. For over a decade, Jumpmind had cultivated a loyal customer base around SymmetricDS, their core data replication platform.

Data administrators using the premium SymmetricDS dashboard frequently encountered usability issues that diminished their productivity. Jumpmind's engineers were overwhelmed by customer support tickets, so my team was entrusted to completely redesign the customer-facing experience focusing on three key initiatives:

1. Dashboard Redesign: The dashboard required a UX and UI overhaul to make it more actionable and intuitive.
2. Configuration Workflow: Overlapping features needed to be consolidated into a cohesive data configuration and deployment workflow.
3. AI Integration: An initiative to develop a machine learning model presented the opportunity to introduce AI features capable of identifying and troubleshooting database errors.

• Streamlined Dashboard: The redesigned user experience features intuitive navigation and actionable controls, reducing dependency on customer support. Enhanced filtering and customization options help boost productivity and efficiency.
• Improved Database Workflows: A new configuration and deployment center consolidates settings and visualizes database relationships with intuitive interactions to make the configuration process a breeze.
• Integrated AI for Retail Data: The AI assistant predicts and mitigates database errors, tailored to specific use cases for each individual customer. Helpful features like event monitoring and automatic fixes enable faster issue resolution.
• Foundational Design System: The design system created for SymmetricDS has been leveraged across other Jumpmind products, ensuring consistent experiences and efficient product development.

After a customer journey workshop to understand how users experienced SymmetricDS, I demoed the dashboard and identified key issues through a usability audit:

• The dashboard was informative but not interactive, lacking robust filtering, customization, and actionable controls.
• Critical features, such as designing and deploying database configurations, were hidden behind menus with overlapping features.
• Inconsistent styling, labeling, and behaviors across interface elements made some interactions unpredictable.

Jumpmind was developing a machine learning program to analyze retail data trends. I helped define key features, document technical requirements, and outline user flows before transitioning into iterative high fidelity design.

Around this time, more and more AI customer tools were flooding the market, so I took a step back to read up on UX for AI. Following "human in the loop" principles, I iterated over the workflows to ensure the user was always in control and aware of what the AI was doing.

The AI is designed to provide insights and solutions for database events. While the AI assistant lives in its own dedicated panel, it can also appear next to relevant data points or be configured in specific processes.

I iterated using components and design patterns from a design system I had already built for Jumpmind for another tool, adding to the root library files while creating a standalone library of components unique to SymmetricDS. This ensured the UI was consistent and reusable, and gave me more time to focus on refining the user experience.

I created a robust prototype and conducted usability testing with experience customers. Interviews with four users validated our concepts but revealed skepticism about the AI. Users wanted to see it work in their actual configuration to understand it; I recommended that Jumpmind should recruit their clients to test-pilot a real proof-of-concept.

Next, my team reviewed database configuration, which involved design and deployment workflows. I led the design for a new canvas experience to help users visualize the relationships between data sources and the flow of specific data. Key improvements included:

• Contextual Panels: Menus and actionable controls are triggered by selecting elements on the canvas.
• Simplified Interactions: Discreet labeling, iconography, and controls replaced previously clunky functionality to reduce clicks.
• Flexible Workflows: Dynamic fields all users to complete tasks non-sequentially for more flexibility.

The robust design system was the cornerstone of our successful design handoff. I organized our files with thorough annotations for development, using diagrams and navigation links in Figma for ease of use. Since most of Jumpmind's engineers had never worked in Figma before, I also compiled a list of resources and documentation for crash course learning.

I optimized the dashboard with increased customization to empower IT admins with maximum flexibility and control. New and redesigned dashboard widgets offer increased flexibility and efficiency with more interactive controls and improved data visualizations to meet the needs of highly complex use cases.

SymmetricDS’ new machine learning capabilities take shape in two primary parts of the experience:

• Monitors are configurable event-based alerts that let users know when database transfers fail or exceed certain threshold. The AI learns from Monitor events to predict when the next occurrence might happen.
• Insights offer richer information about database failures, giving IT admins simple summaries and recommended resolving actions to facilitate the troubleshooting process.

With this design I was able to merge two disjointed configuration workflows while introducing a more tactile way to interact with database schemas.

The improved database configuration workflow gives users a canvas-based experience that allows them to quickly connect database together and visualize their infrastructure. The canvas sits side-by-side with a contextual panel that admins use to configure specific settings on each database such as conditional rules and replication modes.

The foundational design system brings a modern look and experience to SymmetricDS, making it stand out in a landscape of outdated and clunky data management tools.

The design system was essential to my work as I matured the product through improvements such as a cohesive icon library, consistent typographic hierarchy, a robust color palette for data visualizations, semantic symbols for issue escalation, and reusable interaction patterns to accelerate implementation.