Nexen 2.0

Nexen 2.0 Enterprise Redesign

Role: UX Design Director | Team : Myself, 1 Poland Designer | Tools: Sketch, Figma, Miro | 2023+

🏦 Business Case

BNY Mellon, a global leader in financial services, sought to modernize their existing Nexen Ecosystem by redesigning it into Nexen 2.0. The goal was to enhance the platform’s user interface, simplify its component library, and improve the overall user experience by integrating modern, ADA-compliant widgets and personalized dashboards. This was aimed at streamlining the user experience for over 180 API marketplace sources and ensuring that the platform was both visually appealing and user-centric.

🧭 Challenge

The original Nexen Ecosystem was outdated, with a complex and inconsistent interface that hindered usability. The platform relied on an extensive set of components that lacked a unified design system, leading to confusion and inefficiency for users. In addition, the platform's dashboards and widgets were not personalized to the varying needs of different user personas, and accessibility features were not fully optimized. This resulted in lower user engagement, slow adoption, and limited customization for clients with different user roles, such as managers and admins.

🔬 Research & Discovery

To validate the proposed design solutions, I primarily used user interviews. By using clickable prototypes, I was able to quickly test multiple aspects of the design, such as usability, intuitiveness of navigation, clarity of element naming, and more.

🖼️ Scalable Design

🖼️ Elements & Components

🧰 Process & Design Approach

My approach focused on a complete overhaul of the Nexen Ecosystem into Nexen 2.0, which included:

Modernized Component Library: We implemented a unified, scalable design system to streamline component usage across the platform. The new library featured modern design patterns, a consistent look and feel, and improved reusability.
ADA Compliant Widgets: All widgets were redesigned to meet accessibility standards, ensuring a more inclusive experience for users with disabilities.
Personalized Dashboards and Widgets: Dashboards and widgets were tailored to each user persona. Managers and admins could access different sets of information based on their roles, with features like task management and performance metrics. The personalization allowed users to interact with the platform in a way that best suited their needs.
Real-time User and Dashboard Metrics: Real-time performance tracking was incorporated into both user profiles and dashboards. Metrics displayed data about API usage, transactions, and other relevant activities, enabling users to monitor performance, troubleshoot, and make data-driven decisions.

Click screen to view Widget Console Prototype

Clean simple design for Account Management and Dashboard Access Control. Click screen for prototype.

Personalized Dashboards and Dashboard builder tool, for various types of Personas.

✨ Key Takeaways

With the Nexen 2.0 redesign, the bank saw significant improvements:

Enhanced User Experience: The modernized component library and ADA-compliant widgets created a seamless and visually cohesive experience, improving accessibility and engagement across all user types.
Improved Personalization: The new persona-based dashboards led to better user satisfaction, as users could tailor the interface to their specific needs, resulting in higher platform adoption rates.
Increased Efficiency: Streamlining the dashboard features and reducing clutter allowed users to complete tasks faster and with fewer errors.
Operational Improvements: With the new UX, users spent less time navigating the platform and more time focusing on their core tasks, resulting in improved productivity.
Reduced Support and Training Needs: The simplified and intuitive design meant users required less training, and support teams spent less time troubleshooting usability issues.

Overall, the Nexen 2.0 redesign not only modernized the look and feel of the platform but also significantly enhanced the user experience, leading to increased engagement, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

Dashboard Metrics were added for Power Users to track widget usage and activity

View in Figma

VIEW PROTOTYPE

Universum Design System

As part of the Nexen 2.0 redesign, we also introduced a new, unified design system called Universum. This system was developed specifically for the Nexen Ecosystem and BNY Mellon’s broader UX design needs. Prior to this, BNY Mellon had a fragmented design environment, with each line of business using different tools and design systems, creating inconsistencies and inefficiencies across the platform. The Universum design system brought together best practices in design, standardizing components, patterns, and interactions to create a cohesive and scalable user experience across all products and services.

Key Features of Universum:

Unified Component Library: Universum provided a single, consistent set of components that could be used across the entire Nexen Ecosystem and BNY Mellon products, eliminating the disjointed and inconsistent design elements that previously existed.
Cross-Team Consistency: By integrating Universum into the platform, all teams (product, design, and development) were able to work from the same set of rules, tools, and guidelines, reducing discrepancies and improving collaboration.
Design System Scalability: Universum was designed to scale across all of BNY Mellon’s digital products, not just Nexen, enabling future product teams to follow a consistent design language.
Tool Integration: The system was designed to seamlessly integrate with the existing development and design tools used by the company, facilitating smoother workflows and ensuring that the system would be easy to implement across different teams.

The introduction of Universum marked a pivotal shift in BNY Mellon’s design philosophy, helping to break down silos between different business lines and create a unified, user-centric experience. This was the first of its kind within BNY Mellon, setting the foundation for future product and design initiatives, and was a key enabler in the success of the Nexen 2.0 redesign.

A New Nexen 2.0 Library had to be created so we built a Universum Design System that could be used across many LOBs

View in Figma