secrets storage

Users

Over 20K
Developers

My role

Lead Product designer & Concept designer

Team

1 Lead Product designer (me), 1 Product designer, 1 Product owner

Timeline

May 2024-Jul 2024

Design system

Carbon

Challenge

For years, the platform relied on a Material Design visual language dating back to 2010. As a result, the UI became outdated and cluttered with layers of new functionality added over time

As a development-driven product, designs couldn’t be implemented strictly according to testing results. Finding the right balance required close collaboration with the development team to propose feasible, high-quality solutions through compromise and iteration.

Design goal was to create missing user screens to enable full workflow support, followed by interface analysis and field testing aimed at improving speed and efficiency for yard operators.

Discovery & Research

I had tight deadlines and a small team, so we went with an open-source approach. After talking to a 4 engineers, Vault came up as the go-to — so we used it as the base for the new product.

The Vault

Key findings from the analysis of the Vault interface:
  • Excessive empty space reducing content clarity
  • Unintuitive list filtering, making it hard to narrow down results
  • Low-visibility «create» actions within lists
  • Unclear entry points for editing existing content
  • Outdated user interface that doesn’t meet modern standards
  • Light theme mismatched with the product's context and usage scenarios

Priorities

Tight deadlines shaped clear priorities. The back-end remained unchanged at the MVP stage — the user experience was improved through a clearer UI and a consistent visual style aligned with the main platform.

Approach & Process

To align with the main platform’s branding, a dedicated color palette was developed for the new product based on the core platform colors.

To save development time, the design was based on the Consta design system, with a fully customized color theme applied to maintain brand consistency.

First screens

The first results was well received by both the target audience and stakeholders, confirming the decision to move forward in this direction.

Solution

The updated navigation, filtering, and list management significantly improved the speed and ease of configuring and managing authentication data.
While preserving the original Vault logic, the redesigned interface made the experience of setting up authentication methods more intuitive and visually pleasant.

Outcome & Impact

The project hit all its goals — the PM confirmed success, and users in the focus group highlighted better usability and cleaner visuals.
After launch, the tool became the main place for engineers to manage auth and security. It fit well with the platform’s look and feel and was added to the core product suite.

What’s next

Since launch, the product has kept growing. We keep improving it based on user feedback, and the UI kit helps us expand and refine features over time.

If I had more time

With tight deadlines, we kept the backend as-is and focused on UI. If there’d been more time, I’d have dug deeper into the tech side — especially by talking to DevOps engineers to better understand their daily work and struggles.
This project helped me see what really goes into a simple login — and gave me a window into a technical world I hadn’t worked with before. It made me a better listener and designer for the engineers behind the scenes.
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