Global Top Navigation
Unraveling Complex Navigation with Data-Driven Insights
In Dec 2014, accessing crucial deal and account data via the Pivot client portal felt like a significant step forward for managing Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLO).
By Dec 2024, the experience had become bogged down by years of added features, making the platform slow, complex, and challenging to navigate.
I led the critical discovery phase for an ambitious project to completely redesign the navigation.
To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted and obfuscated confidential information in this case study. All information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pivot.
Design by accretion
In 10+ years, Pivot as a large-scale enterprise platform grew, managing vast amounts of data and supporting complex workflows. Over time, its navigation, initially sufficient, struggled to scale alongside evolving business needs and feature growth. Fundamental usability was challenged. Additional enhancements and legacy structures competed for coherence. The user experience became a bottleneck, inefficient and disconnected from industry standards.
The navigation, effectively, had become the system's history.
My recent discovery work focused on dissecting and optimizing the navigation experience and through research and data analysis, we unearthed key insights, demonstrating an approach to tackling complex information architecture challenges head-on.
The goal: modern, engaging, and efficient experience for all internal and external users. One designed to manage vast amounts of data, migrate intricate workflows, and adapt to evolving business needs, while aligning to the bank’s design system and accessibility standards. This modernization preserves, even increases, business value through a more inclusive and efficient user journey, grounded in data-driven, user-centric design.
The Challenge
Rekindling Efficiency and Ease
For years, our legacy system has been the backbone, reliably serving our business and our clients. It was built in a different era and no longer aligns with the speed and simplicity our users expect. This isn't a simple facelift; it's a complex undertaking deeply integrated into our daily operations. Even small missteps can cause significant disruption. Our goal is a fundamental transformation to recapture efficiency and set the stage for the future. We must honor the productivity our clients have built while creating an experience that is both powerful and effortless.
Our high level goals are to:
Optimize user performance for speed and ease.
Ensure a seamless transition that maintains client productivity.
Build for scalability, innovation, and deeper engagement.
The team
My role
I am lead design to transform the legacy system's user experience between Oct 2024 and Jan 2025, focusing primarily on Global Custody core workflows and information architecture.
I collaborated closely with my Experience Designer, Content Strategist, Researcher, Product Manager and Engineers.
My involvement was most intensive during the discovery, strategy, and initial design phases. The modernized system is slated for phased rollout starting Sept 2025.
Kickoff
Picking up the pieces. Addressing the Obvious.
Right out of the gate, it's clear we've got some foundational UX problems that are impacting the current global navigation. We're talking about the kind of stuff that jumps out and needs fixing ASAP.
For demonstration purposes, these recordings use test data, not client information.
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Missing responsive breakpoints (tablet, mobile)
First off, our current setup isn't playing nicely with different devices. We're missing crucial responsive breakpoints, meaning the experience isn't adapting smoothly across XL desktops, tablets, and mobile. In today's world, a mobile-friendly approach isn't a luxury – it's essential.
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Lack of Interaction States (Focus, Hover, Active)
Beyond layout, our interactive elements are falling flat. Menu buttons lack clear visual feedback for focus and active states. This leaves users guessing whether their interactions are being registered, leading to frustration and uncertainty.
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Accessibility Deficiencies
We're not meeting color contrast standards, which can make the interface difficult to use for individuals with visual impairments. Additionally, the lack of proper keyboard navigation and a logical tab order creates barriers for users who rely on these methods to interact with our platform.
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Navigation Menu Missing Sub-levels
And speaking of menus, we're currently limited to a single level. The absence of second-level dropdowns likely hinders navigation and the discoverability of deeper content. This can make it harder for users to find what they're looking for efficiently.
Early insights
IA Content and Navigation
As we begin to shape the future of our platform, it's clear that the interplay between our information architecture (IA), content, and navigation is deeply woven into the fabric of a multifaceted product ecosystem. Our initial explorations highlight several key considerations we must address thoughtfully:
1
Complex Ecosystem
We're dealing with entitlements and role-based access, client-specific views, and context-dependent information needs.
2
System Integration / Regulatory
Seamlessly integrate with existing systems and data sources (~15). Compliance, security, and industry standards are also fundamental design constraints.
3
Scalable / Adaptable
Need IA to evolve gracefully, accommodating new features and changing business needs without complete overhaul.
Pivot Site Map
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Addressing Current state
We've already started the work of visualizing our information landscape. I provided input and assisted in the recent update of our current state site map, which gives us a crucial baseline understanding.
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Evolving Future State
Looking ahead, I've taken the lead in developing the future state site map – the most up-to-date version that reflects our evolving understanding of these complexities and our vision for a more robust and user-centric information architecture. This future state map aims to address the challenges of our product ecosystem, system integrations, scalability needs, and regulatory requirements.
The Discovery
Client expectations changed over time
The navigation issues we uncovered were a bit of a surprise. Initially, they struck me as almost trivial – minor tweaks rather than fundamental flaws. It felt like addressing small usability hiccups, not tackling significant roadblocks for our users.
However, upon further reflection, a crucial point became clear: users expect navigation to be fast, effortless, intuitive, requiring minimal thought or struggle. As Pivot has become an increasingly regular part of their workflow – a daily, weekly, or monthly touchpoint – their expectations for an efficient and logical navigation experience have grown, especially when compared to industry standards. What seemed like minor upgrades were, in fact, essential improvements.
Uncovering the "Why" and the "How Many"
Together, on a journey of discovery, we meticulously examined the existing information architecture. We didn't just rely on intuition; instead, we combined qualitative user research to understand the underlying motivations and pain points with quantitative data analysis to grasp the scale and impact of the known issues.
We dove into "why" and "how many" which allowed us to move beyond assumptions and ground our collective understanding in evidence.
“I usually dig through the sections. It would be nice to search for it.”
Client B
“I rely on bookmarks as a workaround to get to my portfolio.”
Client S
“The two different notification areas – the ones on the side and those in my account settings. What kind of information does each provide?”
Client G
Deeper insights
Working backwards from Perfect
Before diving into any design solutions for the top header navigation, it became crucial to establish a clear definition of success and to understand the current state of our navigation at scale.
User journeys and card sorting
To ensure I captured all perspectives, I hosted collaborative workshops. This way, everyone on the team had a voice before we even considered revamping. Our decisions were grounded in technical feasibility from engineers and solid research input from researchers and stakeholders.
The goal was to create a navigation that felt intuitive and clear – like a well-organized map. Key areas and functionalities were highlighted based on past data and, importantly, with buy-in from all stakeholders.
Ultimately, I wanted to ensure that getting things done on the platform was as smooth and straightforward as possible, no matter the complexity of the underlying task.
For privacy and confidentiality, personal details and sensitive information have been obscured in this view.
One-to-one mapping
To really wrap my head around how everything was connected, I drew up a map of the platform – kind of like a treasure map, but for data and system interactions. I wanted to see how everything flowed together.
Then, I teamed up with engineers to make sure our navigation ideas weren't just visuals, but actually worked in the real world. We wanted to avoid any roadblocks later on. By getting early access to coding and input early, we spotted potential bumps in the road.
Mind mapping Pivot sites
I began to unpack the concept of a clear and effective visualization of these connections, modeling for the dimensions of hierarchy, relationship, and user flow.
I partnered with Product who love to write in .doc and used this framework to map the product connections across the entire Pivot matrix.
Displaying a simplified mind map of Pivot’s product connections of a bigger matrix.
Reframing the problem
The core issue isn't simply aesthetic; it's about optimizing how our users interact with a navigation deeply ingrained in their investment service tasks. Even seemingly minor UX friction points can lead to substantial disruptions.
This begs the following questions:
How might we optimize user performance while maintaining productivity for clients already accustomed to the older version?
How might we lift and shift the current elements into the new navigation while finding way to enhance the user experience?
Our proposal sparked a wave of enthusiastic ideas and quickly gained momentum across the team! With a clear agreement now established, the next crucial step was to anchor our vision in data by gathering quantitative analytics.
Key data
Data Analysis and Metrics
To really figure out where folks were getting stuck, the researcher and I dove into the data with Quantum Metric and Adobe Analytics. It's like having a magnifying glass for user behavior tracking. We used it to spot those navigation bottlenecks, those "uh-oh, where do I go now?" moments. We were looking at numbers and understanding the why behind them, the gathered insights helped us connect the dots and make sure our interpretations were on the same page.
Key insights
Heat maps and click rates
Searching, drilling into details, notifications are high areas of interaction (e.g. 18% = 559,700 clicks).
Consider URL links in the new nav. Welcome menu is not a separate URL that is normally tracked and many links within the window are not specific pages.
Path Analysis
Over 22% of users with access to multiple products often switch during a single session.
File Cabinet, Portfolio, and Reports make up more than 60% of users’ activity.
Not everyone uses the front door starting from Home. Over 33% of users start their session in a deeper link (bookmarks).
The Impact
Positive results and much more to do
Necessary changes
Improve Search
User feedback has elevated global search from a 'nice-to-have' to a 'must-have' requirement. To replace inefficient page-to-page searches, I proposed and will spearhead a dedicated development effort, requiring close collaboration with developers.
Streamlined Information Architecture
User data revealed that the left local navigation contributed to cognitive load and was frequently bypassed, indicating a disconnect from user needs. To address this, the content was reorganized, minimizing redundancy and prioritizing discoverability.
Group notifications/news/updates together
Based on click-through rate analysis, we consolidated all notifications into a single area to improve user efficiency. A new notification icon state was also developed to clearly communicate updates.
Results and impact %
✔️ Reduce task time by 30% and cut 40% of unnecessary clicks (observed by removing 4 out of 10 clicks and merging sections).
✔️ Increase user satisfaction with navigation, which has increased by 30% (based on surveys and A/B testing).
✔️ Improve discoverability with new global search and accessibility, passing color contrast (Deque tools).
✔️ Decrease unnecessary API calls and system utilization during peak hours by 33%.
Future plans
Automatically reorganize information hierarchies (recently viewed, last saved settings, recent searches)
Generate dynamic navigation paths (suggestions in empty search results).
Predict and address potential user roadblocks (intraday, timezones).
Conclusion
In essence, this discovery process, while demanding, yielded positive results and sparked conversations with leadership. I was able to plan/strategize how we were going to tackle complex enterprise navigation problems using a data-driven and user-centered approach. By combining research, analysis, and strategic design, I am creating solutions that improve user efficiency and support business goals on a portfolio-level.
Coming soon – The design phase