Project Background
Databricks wants to redesign the left navigation and object browsing experience in Unity Catalog to help data analysts and platform admins find catalogs, schemas, tables, volumes, and permissions faster. The project is already committed for the next quarterly release because field teams say discoverability issues are slowing enterprise adoption in regulated accounts.
You are the UX/UI Designer embedded on a cross-functional team of 1 PM, 1 researcher, 1 content designer, 5 engineers, and 1 QA engineer. Engineering has warned that several proposed interactions from the initial concept — including real-time tree expansion across very large metastores and cross-workspace saved states — may not be feasible in the current release window.
Key Stakeholders
The Product Manager wants a visible usability win this quarter. The Engineering Manager wants to avoid adding latency or frontend instability to the Databricks workspace shell. The Staff Engineer for Unity Catalog is concerned about API limits and permission edge cases. The Sales and Solutions team wants a polished demo for two strategic enterprise renewals. These priorities are aligned on impact but conflict on scope and timing.
Constraints
- Timeline: 10 weeks to code complete, 2 additional weeks for rollout readiness
- Budget: No external agency support; only $35,000 for usability testing and prototype tooling
- Technical constraints: Must work within existing Databricks workspace navigation framework; no backend API changes approved before launch
- Scale requirement: Must support accounts with 100,000+ tables and complex permission inheritance
- Dependency: Final design QA must align with the shared Databricks design system freeze in Week 6
Complications
- Engineering discovers in Week 3 that the current metadata API cannot support the proposed lazy-loading interaction without timeout risk in large accounts.
- A major customer advisory call in Week 5 reveals admins care more about permission visibility than faster browsing.
- One frontend engineer is pulled for 30% of their time to support a production incident in the Databricks SQL workspace.
Your Task
- Define how you would re-scope the design to fit the technical constraints while preserving user value.
- Create a cross-functional execution plan through design freeze, build, validation, and launch readiness.
- Explain how you would align PM and engineering on trade-offs and decision points.
- Identify the top risks, mitigations, and fallback options if the preferred interaction cannot ship.
- Specify launch success criteria and what you would monitor during rollout.
