B2B SaaS
This case study reflects real work for a high-security client. Some details are omitted to protect confidentiality and honor NDAs. The challenges, solutions, and outcomes are authentic. If you would like more information or a private walkthrough, I would be more than happy to show you. Please feel free to contact me.
Background & Challenge
TruOps is a powerful Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) platform designed to help organizations manage IT risk, compliance, and cybersecurity operations at scale.
Despite its technical strength, the user experience had fallen significantly behind the evolving needs of its users—creating friction that threatened both user satisfaction and product adoption.
Through research, we uncovered a range of critical UX challenges:
Steep learning curve - new users consistently reported confusion and difficulty onboarding.
Disjointed, unintuitive navigation - users struggled to find key features or complete routine tasks.
Inefficient, “click-heavy” workflows - processes required excessive steps, frustrating even power users.
Lack of visual cohesion and clarity - the UI had grown cluttered and disorganized, especially as new AI-driven features were bolted on.
Poor discoverability of key functionality - critical tools were buried under inconsistent menus and screens.
As Head of Design and Lead Product Designer, I was tasked with completely rethinking and redesigning the platform to simplify user interactions, streamline workflows, and create a more intuitive, modern experience, while also ensuring the system could scale with the addition of new features and tools.
This redesign required deep collaboration with product, engineering, and customer success teams to understand user pain points, technical constraints, and business goals. The stakes were high with this project, if left unaddressed, these UX challenges risked driving user attrition, undermining adoption of new AI capabilities, and ultimately limiting TruOps growth in a competitive space.
Solution
We approached the redesign with a focus on task efficiency, visual clarity, and scalability. By centering the design around user goals and simplifying complex workflows, we were able to significantly reduce friction across the platform.
Key solutions included:
A fully restructured navigation system, both global and contextual, that mirrors user workflows and prioritizes frequently used actions.
Simplified task flows with fewer steps and clearer guidance, reducing time on task and user frustration.
A new, scalable design system that brings visual consistency across the entire platform and allows faster development of future features.
Refined content hierarchy and information architecture to improve findability and minimize cognitive load.
Modular components that adapt to new features like AI integrations (the “Clark” assistant) without disrupting user experience.
These solutions not only modernized the platform’s UX but set the stage for seamless AI integration, positioning TruOps for long-term scalability and differentiation in the GRC space.
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Process
The project followed a structured, user-centered design process to ensure all decisions were grounded in real-world needs and business priorities.
Discovery & Audit
Led stakeholder interviews and user research to uncover pain points and unmet needs.
Conducted a full heuristic audit and UX gap analysis of the legacy platform.
Benchmarked against GRC and enterprise SaaS leaders to identify best practices and opportunities.
UX Strategy & Planning
Co-created a shared UX strategy and design principles with product, engineering, and customer success.
Defined key workflows, user journeys, and task priorities as the foundation for redesign decisions.
Iterative Design & Validation
Created low-fidelity wireframes and prototypes for early validation.
Ran usability testing with both novice and experienced users, iterating based on qualitative and quantitative insights.
Established weekly feedback loops with cross-functional teams to ensure alignment and feasibility.
Design System & Visual Design
Built a robust design system including reusable UI components, patterns, and documentation.
Prioritized accessibility, scalability, and development efficiency as core tenets of the system.
Handoff & Implementation
Partnered closely with engineering during sprints to ensure design fidelity and UX integrity.
Provided QA support and design guidance throughout the phased rollout.
Results
While the redesign of the TruOps platform is still an active, ongoing project, measurable progress has already been made across several key areas:
Improved navigation architecture: A redesigned global and contextual navigation system now prioritizes user workflows, reduces unnecessary clicks, and improves discoverability.
Task-driven design: Interfaces are being rebuilt with a focus on user goals, resulting in faster, clearer task completion paths and a significantly less “clicky” experience.
Component-based UI system: A scalable design system was implemented to maintain consistency across the app and accelerate future feature development.
Enhanced onboarding UX: User guidance patterns and contextual help are being integrated to reduce the learning curve for new users.
AI integration planning: The redesign is laying the groundwork for smoother integration of intelligent assistant tools like TruOps’ “Clark,” ensuring they support, not complicate, the user experience.
The redesign has been met with highly positive feedback from internal teams and pilot users alike, with both noting a clearer, cleaner, and more empowering experience that aligns with how users actually work.
By aligning with business, product, and user goals, we’ve not only solved immediate UX pain points but helped position TruOps for its next chapter of intelligent, user-first growth.
