Executive Summary
As the lead Product Designer for ACY Securities' internal CRM,
I collaborated with operations and engineering to expand a "redesign the client list"
brief into a full-lifecycle UX strategy for end-to-end client management.
Serving an operations team of 30+ staff across Sydney, Taipei, and Cyprus, we designed
LogixPanel to consolidate client onboarding, trading activity monitoring, compliance
tracking, and communication logging. replacing a patchwork of spreadsheets that couldn't
scale to enterprise requirements.
The Operational Crisis at Scale
ACY's operations team managed an enterprise-scale client base using tools that worked for
smaller operations but broke catastrophically at scale. Three critical pain
points were degrading operational quality daily:
Operational Complexity
Client data scattered across 7+
spreadsheets, 3 email inboxes, and legacy admin panels. Finding a client's complete
history required opening 4 different tools. Average client lookup time: 4.5 minutes.
Compliance Tracking Gaps
ASIC requires complete client identity
verification, suitability assessments, and ongoing monitoring across 40+
jurisdictions. Manual tracking meant compliance reviews took 3+ hours per client and
gaps were discovered only during audits.
Onboarding Friction
30%+ onboarding dropout rate. New
clients faced 23-field forms, unclear document requirements, and no progress
visibility. Operations team couldn't identify where clients got stuck until they
abandoned the process entirely.
The Initial Brief vs. The Evolved Scope
The original request was tactical: "Redesign the client list page. it's too
cluttered." After spending two weeks shadowing the operations team, I realized
from a UX perspective that the client list wasn't the root problem. it was a symptom of
having no unified client model.
WHAT
I WAS ASKED
- Redesign client list page
- Add search/filter functionality
- Make it "less cluttered"
WHAT
I PROPOSED LATER
- 360-degree client profile with tabbed architecture
- Compliance status dashboard with audit-ready reporting
- Onboarding funnel tracker with dropout intervention
- Automated task management and follow-up scheduling
- Cross-office client handoff protocols
I shadowed 8 operations staff across all three offices for 2 weeks. The most revealing
pattern: every client interaction started with the same ritual. open the client list, find
the client, then immediately leave to check their compliance status in a spreadsheet, their
trading activity in the admin panel, and their last email in Outlook. The "client list" was
just a launchpad for a fragmented workflow.
The Business Decision: Build vs. Buy vs. Adapt
With 100K+ accounts and ASIC-specific compliance requirements, the executive and engineering
teams faced a CRM decision with significant technical and financial implications. As a
designer, my role was to adapt the UX strategy based on this high-level business direction:
Deploy an enterprise CRM with
customization for financial services.
Why leadership rejected: $180K+/year licensing cost. More
critically, couldn't model ASIC-specific compliance fields (suitability assessment
status, PDS acknowledgement tracking, leverage tier classification) without
extensive custom development. Integration with ACY's existing trading backend would
require a 6-month middleware project.
Build a purpose-built CRM from
scratch with the engineering team.
Why leadership rejected: Estimated 6-8 month development timeline.
From a UX perspective, this meant the operations team would have zero input on the
design during the build phase. risking a product that technically works but
operationally fails because it doesn't match actual workflows.
Design custom UI panels that sit
on top of ACY's existing data infrastructure, delivering in 2-week design-and-build
sprints with operations team feedback.
Why leadership chose this: It kept engineering scope manageable.
From a UX perspective, designing against existing APIs with two-week sprint cycles
meant we could test each module with operations and gather feedback continuously.
The first usable module went live in 3 weeks, reaching feature parity with the
spreadsheet workflow in 4 months.
Designing the 360-Degree Client Profile
The core design challenge: a single client record at ACY touches 47 distinct data
fields across identity verification, trading activity, compliance status,
communication history, and account configuration. Showing everything creates information
overload. Hiding things creates workflow friction.
📋
Overview Tab
Identity, account status,
risk tier, last interaction. the "glanceable summary"
📊
Activity Tab
Trading volume,
deposit/withdrawal history, active positions, P&L trends
🛡️
Compliance Tab
KYC/AML status,
suitability assessment, PDS acknowledgement, leverage tier
💬
Communications Tab
Call logs, email history,
meeting notes, scheduled follow-ups, task assignments
What Didn't Work
My first UX proposal tried to solve the "scattered information" problem by putting
everything on one screen. Contact info, trading activity summary,
compliance status indicators, recent communications, and pending tasks. all visible
simultaneously in a dense, single-pane layout. The initial logic was: "Operations staff need
all this information, so let's give it to them."
V1: EVERYTHING VISIBLE
- 47 fields visible per client view
- 3-column dense layout with 8pt font
- Support tickets spiked 3× in first week
- Staff said it was "worse than the spreadsheet"
- Average task completion time increased 40%
→
V2: HEURISTIC TASK-ORIENTED SEQUENCING
- Predictive fields based on client jurisdiction & asset class
- Logic-driven field grouping reduces cognitive load
- Support tickets dropped to below pre-launch levels
- Staff said it "anticipates the next step"
- Average task completion time decreased 55%
The key insight came from watching operations staff use V1: they never needed all 47
fields at once. A client call required contact + last interaction. A compliance
review required KYC status + documents. A trading inquiry required activity + positions. By
grouping fields into task-aligned tabs, each view became purposeful instead of overwhelming.
Compliance Dashboard: Audit-Ready by Design
ASIC audits require demonstrating that every client has completed proper identity
verification, received required disclosures, and been assessed for product suitability.
Previously, preparing for an audit meant 3 staff members spending 2 weeks pulling data from
spreadsheets. LogixPanel's compliance dashboard made the same audit preparation possible in
under 2 hours.
Compliance Status Matrix
| Requirement |
Before LogixPanel |
After LogixPanel |
| KYC Status Check |
Open 3 systems |
Single
badge on profile |
| PDS Acknowledgement |
Email search |
Timestamped record |
| Suitability Assessment |
Spreadsheet lookup |
Auto-scored with flag |
| Audit Report Generation |
2 weeks, 3 staff |
2 hours,
1 click |
| Leverage Tier Classification |
Manual calculation |
Auto-assigned per jurisdiction |
Multi-Dimensional Impact
73%
Faster client lookup (4.5min → 72sec)
98%
Audit report reduction (2 weeks → 2
hours)
-44%
Onboarding dropout rate (30% → 17%)
55%
Faster task completion vs. V1
Operations Team
Eliminated the "4-tool shuffle" that
consumed the first 5 minutes of every client interaction. Staff spend time resolving
client issues instead of hunting for client information. Cross-office handoffs
became consistent with shared communication logs.
Compliance & Legal
ASIC audit preparation went from a
dreaded 2-week scramble to a routine report. Compliance gaps are flagged proactively
instead of discovered during audits. The compliance dashboard became the COO's
most-used internal tool.
Client Experience
Onboarding funnel visibility allowed
the team to proactively reach out to stuck clients. The 44% dropout reduction
directly translated to increased account activations and first deposits.
Engineering Efficiency
Designing on top of existing backend
APIs meant engineering needed no new data models. The 2-week sprint cadence with
operations feedback caught workflow mismatches before they became technical debt.
Total platform delivered in 4 months vs. 8-month estimate for a ground-up build.
Reflection & Strategic Learnings
If I were designing LogixPanel again, three things I'd change:
- Shadow users before touching Figma. I started sketching solutions after
3 days of shadowing. I should have spent the full 2 weeks observing before designing
anything. The V1 "everything visible" mistake happened because I started with data
architecture instead of workflow understanding. The tabbed solution only emerged after
watching staff actually use the dense V1 interface.
- Design the compliance dashboard first, not last. I sequenced modules by
perceived complexity (search → profiles → tasks → compliance). But compliance was the
highest-value module for the COO and legal team. Shipping it earlier would have secured
stronger executive sponsorship for the entire project from day one.
- Include the Taipei and Cyprus teams in sprint reviews from sprint 1.
The Sydney operations team dominated early feedback. When the Taipei team started using
LogixPanel in month 3, we discovered their workflows differed significantly. they
handled multi-currency clients and needed jurisdiction-specific compliance views that
Sydney rarely used. Earlier cross-office participation would have prevented 2 weeks of
rework.
Core insight: Internal tools
deserve the same design rigor as customer-facing products. The operations team uses
LogixPanel 8 hours a day. every friction point costs 30 staff members real productivity.
The "just make the client list less cluttered" brief became a 4-month engagement because
the actual problem was never the list. it was the absence of a unified client model.
Designers who take internal tool briefs at face value miss the systemic opportunity.
