Project Context
Databricks wants to improve the core navigation experience in the Databricks Workspace so data engineers, analysts, and ML practitioners can move more easily across notebooks, jobs, dashboards, catalogs, and AI/BI workflows. You are the UX/UI Designer leading design execution for a platform-level navigation redesign that will affect multiple surfaces used daily by enterprise customers. The project team includes 1 designer (you), 1 product manager, 6 engineers across frontend and platform infrastructure, 1 user researcher, and shared support from design systems.
This work has executive visibility because leadership wants to show measurable usability improvement before Data + AI Summit, which is 14 weeks away. The redesign must launch to 20% of workspace admins and end users as a controlled rollout by that date, without disrupting existing workflows for large enterprise accounts.
Key Stakeholders
- Product Manager, Databricks Workspace wants a visible launch by the event and is pushing for broad scope.
- Engineering Manager, Workspace Frontend wants to minimize platform regressions and avoid reworking legacy navigation code.
- Design Systems Lead wants consistency with existing Databricks patterns and limited one-off components.
- Customer Success / Field teams want continuity for top enterprise customers who are sensitive to workflow changes.
Constraints
- Timeline: 14 weeks total
- Budget: $120,000 for research, prototyping, and usability testing only
- Engineering capacity: 6 engineers, but only 4 are allocated full-time; 2 are shared with ongoing Workspace reliability work
- Dependency: design must align with an in-progress design system token migration finishing in week 6
- Rollout requirement: must support a feature flag, telemetry instrumentation, and rollback within 30 minutes
Complications
- Midway through the project, PM requests adding quick access to Unity Catalog and AI/BI Dashboards, increasing scope.
- A large enterprise design partner reports that any change to left-nav structure could increase support tickets during quarter-end reporting.
Deliverables
- Create a 14-week execution plan with milestones, dependencies, and decision points.
- Define how you will collaborate with PM and engineering to shape scope and make trade-offs.
- Propose a launch plan for the 20% rollout, including success criteria and rollback triggers.
- Identify the top risks to delivery and adoption, with mitigation plans.
- Explain how you would keep stakeholders aligned when design quality, engineering effort, and launch timing conflict.
