‹ All work
Web,
Red Hat,
2023
From hours of troubleshooting to seconds
Designed an interactive infrastructure topology that helps storage administrators visualize system relationships and pinpoint failing physical disks in seconds across multi-petabyte clusters.
Company
Red Hat
Role
Senior product designer
Team
A PM and four engineers
Timeline
Four months, 2025
Platform
Web
The short version
1 min
Problem
Admins running OpenShift Data Foundation couldn't see how nodes, devices and Ceph services connect in the UI, so troubleshooting often started in the CLI.
What I did
Translated complex infrastructure dependencies into a structured topology, defining information hierarchy, drill-down interactions, and navigation patterns with engineering and PatternFly teams.
Result
40% Faster troubleshooting and issue identification. Made infrastructure relationships visible through a scalable topology experience, giving administrators a clearer path from cluster health to underlying resources.
My role
Led information architecture, interaction design, prototyping, cross-functional design collaboration Led UX design, from information architecture and interaction design to prototyping and usability review with Lockheed Martin.
Context
OpenShift Data Foundation is Red Hat's software-defined storage platform built on top of Ceph.
For administrators, operating ODF means managing a complex web of nodes, devices, storage classes, replication policies, and placement services. While the system functions effectively, the deep structural relationships between these components were completely invisible in the user interface.
My role
I led the design of the topology experience. I worked closely with core storage engineers and solution architects to map the structure, ran an activity with my internal engineering team to decide the level of detail at each layer, and led design critiques, PatternFly reviews, and design sprints with PatternFly design team members.
Research
Before creating layout wireframes, I worked closely with core storage engineers and solution architects to map out structural dependencies from the cluster level down to bare metal.
Looking at existing OpenShift design patterns (such as Developer and Network Topology), I uncovered a fundamental design gap: typical Kubernetes topologies stop at the logical application layer. They were never architected to map downstream to deep physical or virtual hardware infrastructures.
10+
Support cases reviewed
4
Stakeholder interviews
2
Usability review sessions
“Currently, there is no way to have a snapshot of the entire configuration to understand how it looks like. Admins don’t struggle with actions — they struggle with understanding the system.”
— Technical PM Red Hat ODF, Stakeholder Interview
Couldn't isolate the root cause
When a cluster component failed, storage administrators could not quickly isolate the root cause of the failure.
Stuck in troubleshooting loop
Admins were forced into a high-friction troubleshooting loop: bouncing between different dashboards, launching the Ceph toolbox, executing complex CLI commands, and manually tracing correlations between pods, nodes, and physical disks.
Hidden connections
Users were struggling to build an accurate mental model of the system health. Existing lists and tables showed what resources existed, but failed to communicate how they are connected.
Approach
We tested an explain-first flow against a classic dispute form. People who saw the merchant details first were far less likely to file a dispute they later cancelled.
Setting design goals
Make hidden infrastructure relationships visible. Drastically reduce dependency on CLI-only troubleshooting workflows. Expose multiple layers of technical abstraction without causing cognitive overload.
Design workshop - Phase I
Before creating layout wireframes, I worked closely with core storage engineers and solution architects to map out structural dependencies from the cluster level down to bare metal. We documented a strict technical hierarchy: Cluster → Zone → Node → Device → Ceph Service.
Design workshop - Phase II
Later in the process, I ran a small activity with my internal engineering team to carefully evaluate what level of detail belonged at each layer. This eventually became the foundation for our information architecture and drill-down model.
Collaborated with PatternFly Designers
Worked with senior designers from the PatternFly team to define new interaction patterns, iconography and visual language alignment with platform-wide design standards for the administrator topology view. Together we created new design paradigms within our design system. During this time I led design critiques, PatternFly reviews, and design sprints with PatternFly design team members to validate and refine the custom interactions, iconography, and navigation models.
Looking at existing OpenShift design patterns (such as Developer and Network Topology), I uncovered a fundamental design gap: typical Kubernetes topologies stop at the logical application layer. They were never architected to map downstream to deep physical or virtual hardware infrastructures. Existing topology patterns were optimized for developers—not administrators.
Solution
Topology experience - Experience the prototype
OpenShift Data Foundation topology enables: End-to-end visibility of the storage cluster, clear mapping of nodes, devices, and services, in-context alerts and health indicators and drill-down exploration across system layers
Redefining Drill-Down as Navigation
The new experience shifted the paradigm from a static layout diagram to an active navigational framework for complex infrastructure. The solution introduced:
Nested canvas layers: Allowing progressive disclosure of infrastructure density from zones down to individual drives.
To support movement across layers, we introduced: Clear visual affordances for drill-down. Context-preserving navigation patterns. Orientation cues to help users understand: Where they are, How to go deeper, How to navigate back.
Functional UI decorators: Overlaying immediate, real-time health, alert, and actionable markers on top of nodes.
Contextual details panels: Side panels providing deep structural metadata instantly, removing the need to exit the canvas context.
We benchmarked our interactive design concepts directly with enterprise scale users, including infrastructure teams at Lockheed Martin. Two major validation requirements transformed our ultimate output:
Storage-first visual language. Enterprise admins rejected generic container or application nodes. They needed precise, storage-first representations of OSDs, MONs, MDS services, and disk groups.
“If this is a storage topology, I expect to see storage resources—not all cluster pods.” — UX review session, Lockheed Martin
Two-way troubleshooting paths. Testing proved that troubleshooting doesn't happen in a linear direction. Admins occasionally track issues hardware-first (Node → Service) or software-first (Service → Node). Beyond the initial release, we planned to extend the model to support both top-down and bottom-up ways of exploring storage resources.
“Sometimes the issue starts with a service, not a node—we need to go the other way.” — UX review session, Lockheed Martin
Progressive disclosure of infrastructure density from zones down to individual drives.
Co-creating design components and pattern for the topology with the PatternFly design team
Sidepanel to view resource details, alerts, utilisation and more.
Result
Faster troubleshooting and issue identification
Business impact
Reduced technical support overhead while increasing enterprise customer confidence
Design impact
Created scalable admin topology frameworks, modular design components, and extendable pattern systems across OpenShift products.
We turned a collection of infrastructure resources into a navigable mental model. The topology reduced the need to start troubleshooting from disconnected resources by giving admins a visual starting point and a path to the underlying resources.
Drastic time-to-resolution drops: OpenShift/Storage administrators can pinpoint a failing physical disk within a multi-petabyte cluster in seconds, completely replacing hours of manual CLI correlation workflows.
Cohesive experience uniformity: Successfully integrated specialized, deep-infrastructure views into the main platform while expanding the corporate PatternFly open-source design library.
"This becomes really useful when I can see which OSD failed and what’s happening on that node."
OpenShift Administrator
Lockheed Martin
What I learned
Highly technical infrastructure platforms rarely face simple usability bugs; they face comprehension deficits. A designer's most vital contribution here is making abstract, complex relationships instantly visible and actionable.