Research, Strategy & Feature Redesign
AWS Service Catalog's Getting Started Library (GSL) gave new admins a shortcut to launching their first cloud infrastructure products — but almost no one was using it. It was hidden, confusing, and generating more friction than momentum. I drove the full redesign: from identifying the problem to shipping the solution.
I identified this opportunity independently and drove alignment across the team. Working with our Technical Project Manager and UX Researcher, I owned the project end-to-end: strategy, research, design, and usability testing.
The GSL was buried inside an unrelated navigation tab with no direct path from the main Service Catalog console. When new admins did find it, the hierarchical folder structure made products hard to discover, the product views didn't give enough information to act on, and adding a product to a portfolio required 7 clicks. There was also no clear product strategy for how to increase GSL adoption — I had to build that too.
I initiated a PRFAQ to build internal alignment on the opportunity, then led a comprehensive research phase to understand why adoption was lagging.
Users weren't failing to use the GSL because it was bad — they couldn't find it, and when they did, the product information wasn't sufficient to act on. The information architecture was the primary obstacle.
I redesigned the information architecture to eliminate the folder structure, surfacing all GSL products on a single discoverable page. I improved product detail views to give admins the context they needed to make decisions, and redesigned the add-to-portfolio workflow from 7 clicks to 2.
I built an interactive prototype and co-authored a comprehensive usability study with the UX Researcher to validate the direction before any code was written.
Five key themes emerged from moderated testing — each one shaping the final design direction.
Users gravitate toward filtering rather than browsing as an initial exploration strategy.
Clear separation between "My products" and "GSL products" was essential to reducing confusion.
Architectural diagrams were highly valued as decision-making aids on product detail pages.
Users wanted additional governance context before adding products to their portfolios.
Tracking (Darkroom metrics) was introduced to understand customer behavior in the new interface post-launch.
A research-driven redesign that turned a buried, underused feature into a primary onboarding path.
Increase in GSL product launches — from 370 to 865 trailing four-week launches — in the months following release.
Of customers using the new interface successfully added a GSL-based product to their portfolio.
Clicks to add a product to a portfolio — the add-to-portfolio workflow cut from seven steps to two.
Introduced Darkroom metric tracking to enable ongoing behavior monitoring post-launch.