Context
A powerful legacy tool that needed to become approachable for a new generation of users.
Content Services is a SaaS product that helps businesses securely manage content like documents, images, and audio files. It is the new experience of a legacy tool formerly called FileNet. As FileNet transitioned to SaaS, the product needed to become easier to learn, easier to navigate, and more approachable for a broader audience, while still supporting powerful admin workflows.
The challenge
How do you simplify a complex legacy admin experience into a modern SaaS product within one year — as the first designer a team has ever worked with?
FileNet was successful, but the admin experience was complex and documentation-heavy. Admins had to jump across multiple interfaces to complete work, and terminology felt too technical for new and business-oriented users. And when I joined, this PM team had never worked with a designer before. That wasn't a small detail — it meant I was also designing how the team worked.
Kickoff
Starting with a 2-day Enterprise Design Thinking workshop.
Two weeks after joining, before touching Figma, I led a 2-day Enterprise Design Thinking workshop with Product Management, Development, Research, Content Design, and my design team. The goal was to build shared understanding, surface assumptions, and align on what mattered most.
Hopes and Fears
As-Is Experience
Questions and Assumptions
User Needs
Big Ideas and Prioritization
To-Be Experience and Stages
Research
Understanding the admin before redesigning for them.
Our researcher conducted secondary research with 6 internal IBMers who worked directly with Content Services clients, followed by 1-hour interviews with 10 content administrators focused on their responsibilities, team structure, pain points, and needs.
Admins need help getting started. They did not want to depend on documentation to begin their work.
Multiple interfaces overwhelmed them. Sending admins to different UIs to complete their work caused confusion and errors.
Terminology was a barrier. Prospective users struggled with FileNet's technical language as the product shifted to business-oriented SaaS users.
Admins work in teams with different levels of expertise. The experience needed to support both new and experienced admins.
Contessa
The Content Services Administrator
An admin at a car insurance company who needs to set up the system so customer service can process auto claims. She manages metadata, secures content by role, and configures the desktop workspace for her team. Managing up to 40 sites, responsible for governance compliance, system upgrades, and training internal teams.
Contessa persona built from structured research, interviews, and IBM concept testing studies
Design
Designing the three core admin workflows.
Based on research insights and the end-to-end story, my team and I designed the key admin workflows needed for Content Services using Contessa's scenario as our design anchor.
Manage content
Create metadata used to organize content, like labels that help sort and find documents.
Secure content
Define roles and access tied to metadata so only the right people can see sensitive content.
Configure desktops
Set up user desktop environments with the right tools, views, and access for each role.
Contessa's story
Aligning the team around one end-to-end scenario.
During the kickoff workshop I noticed we had no clear end-to-end user path tied to a real use case. I partnered with three product managers to craft a story around Contessa, the Content Services administrator. She works at a car insurance company and is tasked with helping customer service organize car claims.
As-Is workshop activity
These four frames show the progression from the As-Is activity during the kickoff workshop: from mapping the complex legacy experience to distilling it into a simplified end-to-end story that shaped everything that followed.
Click any image to zoom
This story gave the entire team a shared mental model to build against. It onboarded new designers faster, aligned stakeholders on scope, and became the anchor for every design decision throughout the year.
Onboarded the design team faster with a clear shared narrative
Built shared understanding across PM and engineering so everyone was building toward the same goal
Validated directly with users in research sessions to confirm accuracy
A design decision
When the right answer required saying no to the team.
During the homepage redesign, a debate emerged: should the workspace environment be called a Hub or a Desktop? It sounds small. It wasn't.
Our research showed prospective users were already struggling with FileNet's technical terminology. "Desktop" carried legacy baggage. "Hub" matched how admins actually described their work: a central place to manage everything.
The constraint
Engineering had already built components using "Desktop" as the technical term. Changing it had a cost.
I brought the research to the PM and senior dev with direct user evidence and looped in our content designer, who was working on terminology consistency across five Business Automation products. We aligned on "Hub" for the UI layer. Engineering kept "Desktop" as the internal technical identifier. I made the case that terminology confusion would cost more at scale than the rework.
User signal. Research showed admins described their workspace as a central command center, not a personal desktop.
The recommendation. "Hub" for the UI layer. "Desktop" stays as the engineering internal term.
The reflection. The most important design work is often not visual. It's knowing when to push back and why.
"Susana brought a level of design leadership and strategic thinking that elevated the entire team. Her ability to align stakeholders, drive clarity through ambiguity, and deliver high-quality work under real constraints was exceptional."
Matt Vest, Product Manager, IBM Content ServicesRoadmap
Staying on track across a year of delivery.
To ensure we could deliver the full MVP within one year, I partnered with Product Management and the lead developers to define and prioritize a roadmap for Stage 1.
I tracked the work on Jira and met with Product Management and the Development Lead every month to discuss where we were and make adjustments as needed.
Homepage redesign
Using the Home Page as the clearest before-and-after.
FileNet's legacy Home Page sent admins to two completely separate interfaces just to start their work.
Content and Access Management opened in one UI. Desktop Configuration opened in another. No clear starting point, no personalization, no in-product guidance. Admins were confused and dependent on documentation.
Ideation Home Page workshop
I decided to host a workshop.
Throughout my time in the Automation organization I had seen designers solving the same problem with different methods and terminology. To make our products more consistent, I organized a workshop and invited everyone in the Austin studio involved in this project.
Participated in the User Needs EDT activity to discover Contessa's needs for the Home Page
Reviewed internal IBM home screens to identify best practices and what to avoid
Reviewed products we use daily to understand what makes them effective
Encouraged by the curiosity of others and the positive feedback from the workshop, I established weekly Design Critiques for any IBMer in the Austin studio, welcoming any role to share ongoing projects, gather feedback, and increase collaboration across teams.
Workshop outcome
New homepage
The final design enables Contessa to:
Feel welcomed, greeted by name and time of day
Start creating without navigating to another UI
Get a quick overview of all her work in one screen
Follow an in-product walkthrough without depending on documentation
Organize the screen based on the task she focuses on
See a feed of teammates and what they have worked on
Use quick links based on personal preferences and learn about new product updates
DUX review
Measured by IBM's most rigorous internal design quality program.
IBM's Design User Experience (DUX) review scores products across experience standards by an independent panel — it's not self-reported, not a survey, and not easy to move. Products regularly score Inadequate for years without improvement.
Before I joined, Content Services had never had a designer. The DUX baseline reflected that: Usability was a 9 (D, Inadequate), Visual Design wasn't even assessed, Content scored 14 (D+, Inadequate).
One important note: Learn, Try, Buy, and Get Started were intentionally out of scope. Those are PLG experience standards — I was pulled onto the PLG Innovation Team specifically to lead that work separately. What this project owned — Usability, Visual Design, Content, and Use — all moved significantly.
The scores: Usability moved from 9 (D, Inadequate) to 34 (C, Minimal). Visual Design went from not assessed to 72, B+, rated Good — the highest category on the scale. Content moved from 14 (D+, Inadequate) to 34 (C, Minimal). Use moved from 25 (C-) to 45 (C+). These gains happened in 12 months on a product that had never had a designer, inside one of the strictest internal design review programs at IBM.
"Clarity beats complexity. Modernizing a legacy tool is about removing confusion, not adding features."
Personal reflection from the Content Services projectRecognition
The work that kept going after ship.
Outcomes
Delivered on time. Recognized for impact.
Product I contributed to
Redesigned a legacy enterprise platform contributing to improved experiences and customer satisfaction.
Delivered on time
Delivered a modernized foundation for Content Services SaaS within one year — on time, no scope cuts.
Visual design DUX score
Went from not assessed to 72, B+, Good — the highest DUX category — in 12 months.
Usability improvement
Usability moved from 9 (D, Inadequate) to 34 (C, Minimal) inside IBM's strictest design review program.
Reflection
What this project taught me.
Lessons I carry forward
Alignment creates speed. When teams share one end-to-end story, decisions get easier and execution gets faster.
Clarity beats complexity. Modernizing a legacy tool is often about removing confusion, not adding features.
Culture is part of the work. Building relationships and trust made collaboration smoother across roles and time zones.
If I could redo one thing: I would involve customer success earlier — they had months of Contessa-level insight that took me weeks to surface through research.