Mallikarjun - Cisco

Type: Enterprise Dashboard & Compliance Reporting Design

Duration: 2021 – 2022 (10 Months)

Company: Cisco

Role: Lead UX Designer

What I did: User interviews, customer research, personas, information architecture, journey mapping, wireframing, prototyping, design system contribution, usability testing, cross-functional collaboration, roadmap influence.

Project team members: Product Managers, Engineers, Visual Design, Data Science, CX Cloud, Security, Enterprise Networking, and Meraki Product Teams.

Tools: Figma, Miro, InVision, Jira, Confluence

Project at a glance

Product: Cisco CX Cloud + Meraki Next Gen Dashboard
Focus Areas: Compliance reporting, guided network setup, unified monitoring dashboards, trust & visibility
Timeline: Prototype delivered in 1 month for compliance reporting; dashboard redesign was ongoing contribution
Role: Lead Product Designer (Sole UX on compliance reporting; contributor on Meraki dashboard redesign)

Cisco CX Cloud and the Meraki Dashboard power some of the world’s largest enterprise networks, yet customers faced challenges with fragmented tools, high learning curves, and limited visibility into network health. As the lead UX designer on compliance reporting for CX Cloud—and a contributor to the Meraki Next Gen Dashboard redesign—I helped reimagine the experience to meet customer needs at scale.

For CX Cloud, I initiated and delivered a new compliance reporting flow that made it easier for enterprise customers to generate audit-ready reports, reducing setup time and introducing AI-driven insights for anomaly detection. For Meraki, I collaborated with product managers and engineers to redesign the Next Gen Dashboard, focusing on simplifying navigation, consolidating complex data, and improving trust through clear, unified visibility. Key innovations included guided setup templates for faster onboarding, a holistic health score to benchmark performance, and mobile-first troubleshooting playbooks.

Context and why this mattered

Cisco manages networking at massive scale — and the dashboard needs to work for many customer types (small businesses → global enterprises) across industries. The problem is: networking is inherently complex, and customers still need experiences that feel simple, trustworthy, and actionable.

Two related efforts were happening in parallel:

CX Cloud Compliance Reporting — new reporting experience to reduce setup friction and improve insight quality.
Meraki Next Gen Dashboard Redesign — improving navigation, unifying complex data, and increasing trust/visibility at scale.

The UX challenge

What made it hard

Wide range of users: IT admins, network engineers, security/compliance stakeholders, and business owners
High cognitive load: lots of technical terms + many workflows stitched across legacy tools
Trust is everything: customers must feel confident in health scores, alerts, compliance status, and recommended actions
Scale: experiences must stay usable across 1 network or thousands of networks

Design principles we anchored on

Make it simple (reduce steps + reduce jargon)
Give users control (clear navigation, filters, scopes, drill-downs)
Build trust (transparent data, explainability, consistent status logic)

My role (senior-level scope)

For CX Cloud compliance reporting (sole UX)

Initiated the project and clarified scope with PM + engineering
Ran discovery and defined the core workflows
Produced end-to-end UX: flows → IA → wireframes → hi-fi prototype
Shaped “AI-driven insights” presentation so outputs felt explainable and useful, not “black box”
Delivered a functional prototype in one month to align stakeholders and accelerate build decisions

For Meraki dashboard redesign (contributor)

Helped simplify navigation patterns and unify multi-surface data experiences
Worked on “visibility + control” design improvements that increased customer confidence
Supported launch readiness and learnings loop from customer feedback (including Cisco Live)

Step-by-step process (what I did)

Discovery: understand workflows + pain points

Goal: map how customers actually manage networks and where reporting breaks down.

Activities

Stakeholder interviews (PM, Eng, sales, support)
Review of existing reporting flows + legacy tool behaviors
Journey mapping (high-level “day in the life” + key moments: setup → monitor → troubleshoot → report)
Identified friction areas: setup time, unclear data context, too many clicks, inconsistent terminology

Key takeaway
Customers didn’t want “more data.” They wanted clear health signals, what changed, why it matters, and what to do next.

Define: turn complexity into clear problems

I framed the work as a set of designable problems:

Reporting setup is slow and confusing
Health and compliance status lack clarity / explainability
Users struggle to know where to start (especially new or time-constrained admins)
Data is fragmented across surfaces and feels inconsistent

Success criteria

Reduce setup effort (fewer steps, guided defaults)
Improve comprehension (clear status model + plain-language insights)
Increase confidence (transparency + traceability)
Make it scalable (works for 1 network and 1000+)

Ideate: design sprints + solution directions

We ran design sprints to explore and validate options quickly.

Solution directions explored

Guided reporting setup with templates/defaults (progressive disclosure)
Unified health model (overall score + categories + drivers)
Insight cards that translate raw metrics into “what/so what/now what”
Actionable monitoring: “alert → context → recommended steps”

Service blueprint + user flows (systems thinking)

To ensure this wasn’t “just UI,” I mapped the end-to-end system:

Service blueprint

Inputs: telemetry, policy configs, device posture, network events
System processing: compliance logic + scoring + recommendations
Outputs: dashboards, reports, notifications, guided steps
Support layer: help content, escalation paths, audit requirements

Core user flows

Setup a compliance report (template → scope → validate → publish)
Monitor overall health (overview → drill-down → compare)
Troubleshoot an issue (alert → context → root cause hints → actions)
Share/export reporting outcomes for stakeholders

Prototyping (fast alignment + build-ready)

Because we needed fast decisions, I built a functional prototype that covered:

Reporting setup journey
Health summary + category drill downs
A consistent status language (Good/Fair/Poor + contributing factors)
Insight patterns (AI-driven insights presented with context + confidence)

Why it mattered
The prototype became the shared source of truth across PM + Eng and helped move the work forward quickly.

Testing and iteration (feedback → improvements)

What we tested

Comprehension: “Do users understand what the health score means?”
Findability: “Can they locate key reporting actions fast?”
Confidence: “Do they trust the system’s recommendations?”
Speed: “Can they complete setup without getting stuck?”

What changed after feedback

Simplified terminology and improved microcopy for less experienced admins
Improved drill-down structure (less jumping between pages)
Strengthened explainability of AI insights (why + what data it used + next steps)

Final solution (what shipped / what we delivered)

CX Cloud compliance reporting experience

A guided reporting experience that reduced setup friction
Cleaner information hierarchy and flow sequencing
AI-driven insights integrated in a way that felt actionable (not noisy)
Strong prototype that influenced broader reporting roadmap and legacy migration plans
Arjun UX

Meraki Next Gen Dashboard improvements

Improved navigation and visibility across complex data
Better monitoring + trust signals (more clarity and control)
Positive external validation and adoption support momentum after launch
Arjun UX

Outcomes and impact (senior-level framing)

Business + product impact

Compliance reporting prototype accelerated decisions and reduced ambiguity in build planning
Work influenced broader reporting roadmap and helped support legacy tool migration direction
Arjun UX
Dashboard improvements helped drive customer confidence and adoption (validated through customer-facing feedback moments like Cisco Live)
Arjun UX

Personal highlight (leadership moment)

“At launch, some users gave tough feedback — change can be hard. I stayed calm, listened, and worked with the team to prioritize fixes quickly. The best moment came months later at Cisco Live, when a sales rep told us the new design helped them win new customers.”

What I learned

When designing for advanced domains, the win is rarely “more features.” It’s clarity + trust + guided action.
A strong prototype isn’t just visuals — it’s a decision-making tool that reduces risk and accelerates alignment.
The best dashboards are not data dumps; they’re narratives: “current state → drivers → next best actions.”

Future vision

Over the next few years, this experience can evolve into:

Smarter automation (recommended fixes that scale)
Better personalization by user type (IT owner vs enterprise engineer)
More proactive guidance (predictive insights + prevention workflows)
A more unified platform experience across networking + IoT surfaces

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