Sarat Chandra Addepalli

Set up the structure and flows so that when a redesign was approved, the heavy lifting was already done

Phase 1: Interim modernisations in legacy UI

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Sarat Chandra

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Web application | Internal Tool | B2B, SaaS, CPaaS, Enterprise

6 min read

Re-designed a legacy internal system (NMX) starting with it’s complex number-routing workflows within legacy constraints, setting the stage for a 5X faster full platform rebuild.

Before

After

My role

👨🏻‍💻 IC product designer

🚀 Led the UX, systems thinking and created the roadmap for redesign

👥 Collaborated with product and dev teams

Solution

Redesigned key workflows within the existing system while planning ahead for a seamless future rebuild using Cisco’s design system.

Impact/Results

🚀 Reduced task completion time by 50%

🧠 Improved workflow flexibility by 40%

🛠 Full redesign launched 5x faster due to earlier experience groundwork

Problem

NMX is critical to webex connect’s internal number management operations, but it was built on a legacy interface with limited support for usability or scale. Adding new features was difficult both for designers and users.

Teams relied on -

Manual setups, redundant operations and a system that had grown fragmented and over time remained stagnant to the increasing scale of webex connect

There was no easy way to -

Handle bulk changes, no adaptability and no central logic that reflected how users thought about enabling numbers across use cases.

Business challenge

Webex connect’s enterprise clients rely on the number-based communication at scale, but the internal number management system (NMX) was becoming a liability

It wasn’t just a legacy tool. It was:

Slowing down time to market for new use cases (e.g. campaigns, international routes, fallback routing)
Frustrating internal teams and clients with rigid workflows and inconsistent logic
Blocking product innovation, as new feature requests hit the wall of a disjointed UI and unscalable structure
Delaying business expansion into new regions and complex routing setups, which competitors were already supporting

The risk? We couldn’t confidently promise enterprise-level flexibility and reliability when our own number system couldn’t keep up with evolving scale, complexity and logic

What the business needed was not just a redesign, but a strategic design-led intervention that could:

Unblock user friction now
Lay the groundwork for a full platform modernisation
Turn NMX from a bottleneck into a core enabler of multi-channel messaging at scale

...

Opportunity

A product manager approached me with a new feature need in NMX which was to create routing plans that could group and apply logic across numbers for different sets of users

( Vendors and Customers )

But this wasn’t just about a new feature. It was a chance to rethink how NMX worked overall, without waiting for a full rebuild.

I saw an opportunity to make routing plans the base for a faster rebuild in the future when the time and resources were allocated.

Solution

Using routing plans I started to -

Introduce new interaction patterns without breaking the legacy system and reframe complex routing logic into simpler, goal-driven step by step process

This was the legacy interface I was trying to transform to be capable to accommodate newer requirements that can increase the system’s usage and efficiency, and below is an example of a feature adopting new interaction patterns

I started building new features like routing plans with interactive patterns and components not native to the existing system such as interactive tables, drop-downs, search filters, step-by-step wizards etc., so that I spend lesser time on the re-design sorting through creating IA’s and interaction patterns and focus on quickly building the UI under the design system.

Below is the UI of routing plans post transformation using the design system

Routing Plans were the strategic entry point: A modern flow embedded in the legacy platform that scaled with future redesigns.

Foundation set

Phase 2: Full Redesign

The launch of Routing Plans became the tipping point.

After going live in the legacy UI, the feature showed promising usability metrics and strong user feedback, enough to open a conversation about what a modernised platform could achieve.

| I used this momentum to push for a full platform rebuild.

By carefully designing new interaction patterns such as

- Standardised navigation (Side Nav, Tab Navigation, Step-by-step wizards, Nested tables)
- Layouts with more interactive tables, dropdowns, filters
- Categorised and stacked input fields
- Customisable content blocks etc.,

And rethinking the information architecture, I was able to retain only what worked and replace outdated logic with clearer, research-backed flows.

This laid the groundwork for a complete redesign under Cisco’s Momentum Design System, giving the team a scalable structure to build from, with less technical and design debt.

Here is the re-designed platform: (The key screens)

...

Impact

🚀 Task Time

Reduced by 50% across key workflows

🧠 Productivity

Improved by 40% through bulk operations and clearer logic and flow of information

🛠 Rebuild Speed

Full redesign launched 5x faster due to earlier experience groundwork

🔄 Flexibility

Users began creating workflows the system could adapt to in later versions

🤝 Adoption

Increased internal usage and trust in NMX as a foundational tool

...

My philosophy

This project taught me the power of designing for today while building for tomorrow.

I didn’t wait for a redesign to make the product better. I introduced thoughtful changes where possible, created scalable systems under constraint, and made the future work easier by solving for experience, not just layout.

...

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