Case studies as a UX Designer at Cayuse, LLC.

Case studies as a UX Designer

What is Cayuse?

Per Cayuse's website: "Cayuse is a cloud platform that helps research organizations manage billions in research funds and drive impact across the entire research lifecycle." Cayuse's products are research administration software centered around grants.

What did I do at Cayuse?

  • UX Designer on multiple product teams

  • Owner of Design System

  • Accessibility Guru

Case Studies

#product
Case Studies

Jump to #product case study:

Designing My Tasks: Multiple product teams collaborating and utilizing new usability test initiative to rapidly design 8+ new features

A mockup view of the dashboard, including a table of the tasks and filters, as well as a desktop view of all of the new Tasks features

A look at the different features designed at the same time for the My Tasks project. Main features include: New improved dashboard with a way to search and filter tasks, uploading attachments, tagging, commenting, user assignment, reminders

Key takeaways

  • Multiple product teams (PMs, stakeholders, devs) needed to work on a new cross-platform project; needed new process for collaborating and sharing ideas

  • Major stakeholder input was a high priority due to customer investment

  • 8+ individual features were designed concurrently with the multiple teams

  • Relied heavily on RAPID prototyping to inform design designs, using newly created usability testing initiative

  • Was first big project to fully utilize design system that I created

Major Outcomes

  • New practices for cross-team projects were developed, including new ideation sessions

  • 40+ stakeholder requirements met, while still being usable for ALL customers

  • Rapid prototyping allowed for quick iteration, allowing teams to collaborate efficiently when making changes

  • 20+ design system components were used during project, more than any other project to date

  • Despite a lot of moving parts between teams, because new collaboration efforts, new usability testing, and full use of the design system, project was pushed to production on time

Mockup of the ideation stage, with a early version of tasks, as well as flows of the work

Ideation stage, with an early version and screen flows

A view of some of the high def wireframes with protyping, a long with a mockup view of the usability testing software

Lysnna was the usability testing software used for testing our prototypes with users.

Leading design for the Admin/Platform team: Connecting 10+ products to Cayuse's platform

A mockup view of the Admin people dashboardm and several other admin screen eamples

Admin examples, including the dashboard that contains People data, and some examples of other data tables and forms.

Key takeaways

  • Connected to all other products, needed to be easily understood by all users of ALL products

  • Centered around database of users/customers, well designed data tables improved usability of viewing data

  • Necessary to have well designed form inputs for editing user data

  • Redesigned forms from design system and updated workflow improved usability of data entry and editing

Redesign the Fund Manager dashbaord: A research-driven approach to display key fund data

Pictures of ideation with PM on the whiteboard, some early mockups, and a final mockup of the dashboard

Ideation stage, early dashboard ideas, and the final dashboard

Key takeaways

  • Dashboard redesign was the main focus, as current users had a difficult time finding the most important data

  • Main mode of user research was user interviews, and the research focused on what data would be most important to display to users

  • Other decisions and data points were made based on the knowledge base of the PM, who was a Subject Matter Expert in the (niche) fund manager administration world

  • User research + SME provided enough information to have correct data displayed, as well as filling in the gaps of how best to display the data in the designs

#designsystem
Case Study

KEY POINTS

  • Over 50+ Components/Patterns audited

  • Created Figma component library

  • Created documentation outlining acceptance criteria

  • 200+ accessibility issues fix by Accessibility initiative

  • Worked with developers to create 50+ code ready components in code library

A look at how the components look in the Figma library, created from scratch

  1. Auditing the current products

  • Multiple product teams had different usage of components on their products

  • Designers using different components with different styles, sizes, etc.

  • Different code caused different behavior and accessibility issues

  • No consistency

An example of how I audited different components, in this case a load indicator

  1. CREATING THE FIGMA LIBRARY

  • Using Figma features to create components and variants (eg. Product specific)

  • Improved efficiency in creating wireframes

Form element component - shows hows I used variants to build component for any situation

  1. CREATING DOCUMENTATION

  • Documenting all aspects of how component is used

  • Not only for designs, but criteria to be followed by PMs and Devs as well

Design System documentation lived in a Confluence space.

  1. ACCESSIBILITY INITIATIVE

  • Aligned with company wide accessibility initiative, but not originally part of plan

  • Always have accessibility in mind when creating components + documentation

  • Allowed for a better way to prioritize some work

  • Allowed for large amount of ticketed accessibility issues to be dealt with at once

An example of what Accessibility Guidelines looked like in documentation

  1. CODE READY COMPONENTS

  • Worked with developers to make a code ready library in a service called bit.dev

  • Would review every component to make sure it matched the documentation and accessibility guidelines

  • Worked with other teams to make sure components were usable and did not break current live product

Code ready components lived in a shared bit.dev space

The "Common Header" component,. Very important as it was one of the few shared components used by EVERY product

Dialog component, also called a pattern. In Figma page, would contain examples and rules

Designing with an accessibility first approach

Cayuse made it a top priority to find and fix all accessibility issues within their products.

One of the main ways of doing this is through VPATs, or Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates. While there are legal reason why Cayuse uses VPATs, they contain useful information for the UX team as well. If there are products, features, or even components where we see a lot of accessibility issues always happening, we can make sure our Design System documents the correct way to meet accessibility standards from WCAG, as well update our Figma designs, in the library AND in created designs.

The UX team did training on accessibility as well, and would always make sure to reference WCAG documentation. My designs at Cayuse were accessible because of expert knowledge of accessibility, combined with designing with accessibility in mind, as well as a Design System that covers accessibility within it's components and patterns.

Some examples of how we accessibility was handled within our design system can be seen here:

Accessibility Update for Cayuse Connect

Thumbnail for Cayuse Connect Accessibility update video
Thumbnail for Cayuse Connect Accessibility update video

© Nick Brosas Design 2025

I don't really know what to put in a footer for a portfolio

© Nick Brosas Design 2025

I don't really know what to put in a footer for a portfolio

© Nick Brosas Design 2025

I don't really know what to put in a footer for a portfolio