Oracle
Oracle Navigator: Twelve Weeks, Seven Projects, and One Bet I Made Myself
- Timeline
- July to September 2024
- Role
- Product Manager Intern
- Brief
- Over a twelve-week Product Manager internship, I uncovered severe stakeholder misalignment in a key Oracle product, leading research and a full redesign. Oh, and finished four other side projects.
- Tools
- Figma
- Jira
- Confluence
- SQL
30-second version
- THE MESS
- Customers running multi-million-dollar cloud projects couldn't find what came next. That's over 10,000 businesses without clear visibility into their own implementation.
- THE BET
- I was hired to build notifications. I pitched a dashboard redesign too, and my manager took the bet.
- RESULT
- Core management tasks went from taking 3 clicks to 1. 100% of key stakeholder interviewees picked my design in a blind A/B. And I built the first notifications. Everything shipped.
- 3→1clicks on core tasks
- 7/7preferred my revision
- 15Figma versions in 14 days
Visibility matters
Picture this: you're leading a team managing a multi-million-dollar cloud transformation using Oracle Navigator. Deadlines are looming, but you're constantly missing alerts, struggling to track team progress, and wasting time digging through confusing navigation. Critical milestones feel buried, and your productivity is slipping away.
(Navigator is now Oracle AI Success Navigator. It draws on more than 10,000 successful Oracle Cloud implementations.)
I like this [redesign] much better because it gives me status right away and then I can drill in [further] and the updates are right there.
I can look at that overview and if we are on track I can breathe a sigh of relief. But if I don't have that widget right here [on the main page] I have to go dig in to figure out where we are at on the status of the implementation.
I was expecting that there would be something on the home page, maybe on the Recommended Journey cards, that would list what I've done so far or what I'm currently doing.
This [redesign] is what I'd expect in a dashboard.
I definitely like this view better with the Implementation Updates there on the right hand side. It goes directly to the Milestone overview, that is more intuitive to me as well.
If I wanted to see where we stand in our project I would expect to see that on the dashboard.
Designing the first notifications
Navigator had no customizable notification system. Users missed deadlines and overlooked tasks. My assignment: design the first one.
7 stakeholder interviews. Four things I designed around: appearance, frequency, history, urgency.
- Persistence: alerts should stay until dismissed (6/7)
- Customization: users want control over type and frequency (7/7)
- Prioritization: high-risk tasks need frequent alerts, email for completions and deadlines (7/7)
- Interactivity: a "View" button and a history drawer made tracking easier
- Integration: Teams and Slack compatibility is a future must
But my research uncovered underlying UX issues.
Every participant wasted more than two minutes finding the correct pages.
I noticed this pattern on my own, in customer complaints online and in Oracle's native data-logging tools. I pitched my manager a bigger scope: redesign the main dashboard and test it alongside the notification work. He took a bet on me.
The dashboard
No holistic project view and unclear navigation meant stakeholders couldn't monitor progress, leading to frustration and confusion.
7/7 wanted a high-level view with clear task status and due dates. 7/7 wanted quick paths to updates, upcoming tasks, and at-risk milestones.
- Homepage widget: real-time implementation progress on login
- The "10,000-foot view": toggle milestones and members, sort by end date, risk, recency
- One-click export for stakeholder reports
- Customizable layout: move widgets, pin features, adjust by role
- Milestone details: dates, owners, comments, completion percentages
Through active revision and fast-paced iteration
I designed 15 versions in 14 days.
Final version: Progress Tracking, Seamless Collaboration.
Validate. Ship.
- Notifications and the new dashboard are live
- Core tasks: 3 clicks to 1 (information on the front page or one CTA away), about a minute of searching saved. 7 testers, timed.
- 7/7 preferred my version in a blind A/B
- 7 projects in 12 weeks. Oh, and four of them were side projects.
Release plan and handoff
The Oracle Cloud World deadline set the pace. I rebuilt the Milestone page from the existing Initiative view to save dev time and cost.
- Phase 1: Implementation History widget (fast, visible win)
- Phase 2: Milestone and Member views, two sprints
- Phase 3: Initiative view rebuilt into Milestone page
- Before each: design QA against Oracle UI standards, plus validation interviews
I met with both SWE and PM teams, wrote the spec, and ran it through Jira and Confluence.
Our team had the great fortune of having Nadia join our team as a Product Management and UX intern. Nadia quickly demonstrated her learning agility and UX expertise by conducting rapid customer engagement/UX research and generating insights around potential notification functionality/features. She also stepped into several other initiatives helping to define features and shepherd them into development.
Nadia is a phenomenal teammate with a remarkable ability to "read the room", speak with credibility and confidence, influence others, and deliver outstanding results. With her intelligence, initiative, willingness to learn, and adept communication skills, Nadia is a high-potential people leader in the making that would benefit any team or organization.
Nadia made exceptional contributions to our product management and UX design efforts at Oracle. During our time working together, Nadia consistently demonstrated her strong capabilities in conducting UX interviews, where her confidence and professionalism stood out. She not only gathered valuable insights but also implemented feedback immediately, showcasing her commitment to continuous improvement.
Nadia's genuine nature and articulate communication made her a pleasure to collaborate with and work alongside. She is detail-oriented and considerate, always taking the time to listen and understand different perspectives. This ability to integrate feedback and diverse viewpoints into her work greatly enhanced our team’s output.
Nadia’s compassionate and friendly demeanor fostered a positive team environment. She is an incredible teammate, always ready to support her colleagues and contribute to group discussions. Her presence on the team was not only beneficial in terms of her skills but also brought joy.
Nadia's talents and interpersonal skills will undoubtedly make a significant impact within any organization and in her own future.