Deutsche Bank
A complex global Data Source Catalog for Deutsche Bank that is cognitively calmer, operationally clearer, emotionally trustworthy, and made easy to use.
The Data Source Catalog is a global internal data management application that offers timely, complete, and accurate responses to data requests to efficiently manage an ocean of data.
The web app contains information about Deutsche Bank's data assets, providing reliable and consistent data to clients, management, investors, regulators, and other official organizations.
The Opportunity
“Our product team is stuck due to the tremendous complexity of the concept we currently have.”
“Our users are facing difficulties managing their information.”
“Our bank employees globally need this product & there’s a lot of pressure to get it out, but the solution is not ready.”
“Humans are not rational. They are reactive. Design must reduce uncertainty.”
The Solution
A global data-source catalog designed to reduce legal, regulatory, and retrieval risk by making data assets findable, classifiable, and governable.
We gathered requirements, created a new architecture, and designed & built a user-friendly solution to ensure the bank’s data assets are indexed, classified, and cataloged with an associated governance and control model.
The Impact I Created
As the Director of UX, I reported to the Global Head of UX at Synechron for the project. I worked with a large cross-functional team of over 20, including 10+ members from the US team and 10+ offshore technology team members.
As UX Design was an unknown capability within this technology-led organization, my role was to demonstrate the design value and lead a critical 3-year, multimillion-dollar engineering project.
What was accomplished
Helped drive Digital Change Management and sped up the Agile Transformation journey, showcasing a new way of integrating design into the engineering process
Significantly improved user delight, as users were elated by how the tools made their daily tasks simple and useful. Achieved a felt outcome of calmer processing, faster orientation, and stronger user confidence.
Streamlined User flows by 50% & compressed them to only 5-6 screens to implement every feature identified in the entire app
Laid the foundation for a design department that grew big in the next 5 years by highlighting design’s vital role in the business
Drove business growth by empowering the team to create a user-focused product solution and building a culture of ownership
Increased business efficiency & productivity by mentoring a talented global team on best industry practices
Earned charge of 2 other critical UX projects due to my design advocacy workFelt outcome calmer processing, faster orientation, stronger confidence.
How I accomplished it
Showcased success to emphasize how design is a vital differentiator to this technology-centric organization’s global senior leadership, including the CEO, in their annual leadership meeting
Owned the full design process & evangelized Design Thinking principles that resulted in on-time, detailed, and polished project deliverables
Led the project scoping, overall UI/UX design strategy, and implementation efforts for several other projects for the organization
Collaborated with global Data Science Head and client executives at all organizational levels while presenting ideas, leveraging business knowledge & getting regular feedback
Coached & advocated the team in best design practices and human-centered methodologies
Spearheaded technical inbound collaboration with the Engineering Department to create scalable solutions focused on experience outcomes
Exhibited calm & patience while navigating complex organizational structures and processes in a large global bank
As per Design Management Institute, the design-led companies on the S&P 500 outperformed their counterparts by 228% over the last 10 years. We leveraged such metrics to highlight the value of design in business.
My mantra for this project
An intellectual says a simple thing in a difficult way, while a UX/UI designer says a difficult thing in a simple way. There is always a way out of thorny complexity. Even a cactus has a beautiful flower.
Non-obvious insights:
User doesn’t just need better data. The user also needs less doubt.
Uncertainty, more than complexity, overwhelms the user.
The user trusts defensible outcomes more than trusting systems.
Safety, more than speed, is a user goal.
The user wants to avoid irreversible mistakes but doesn’t really want to avoid effort/action.
The user doesn't want fewer features; they want fewer decisions.
The user's biggest productivity tool is a mental model and habits the user can't fully articulate.
Do not consider the 'My Items' toggle as a filter. It's a user's identity boundary to operate within.
The user's resistance to change is actually expertise-protection behavior.
The user measures the product quality by what it prevents, and not just what it enables.
What we did
My team worked with a team of business analysts and technology leads to create:
Design Guidelines and Considerations – For the UI as a whole
Customization requirements – For each User & User Role
UI Map – Illustrates all pages/screens within the DSC app and their navigation to external apps and where the screens map to the high-level data model.
Screen Wireframes – Gives the UX designer an idea of the functionality required and some data elements within the screen. Each Wireframe has notes detailing parts of the design.
Use Case Navigation Paths – Show each use case from the BRD and how the UI will cater to it.
Permissions – For certain areas of the application by page and User Role
Modular design – Miller's Law states that working memory holds 7±2 items. The design compressed complexity into chunked, scannable groups.
My key takeaways from the project
Clean design => Better and faster processing of user information
We aimed to provide a better sense of calm by removing every pixel of visual and content noise, facilitating users to quickly process the information & view the dashboard as more than just aesthetically pleasing
Simplified UI design => Time-saving for the organization, employees & users
If UI simplification saves even 1 second/day per user, that is about 25K+ seconds/day globally, or 2430+ employee hours/year saved for a large organization like Deutsche Bank.
The human brain seeks to reduce uncertainty, minimize effort, and maximize reward.
People don’t struggle with data They struggle with uncertainty.
Banking is not about money
It is a collective belief system. Money works because humans trust it. So the real product is trust architecture. And trust is built through predictability, transparency, and emotional safety.
Banking is about: Fear (loss aversion), trust (uncertainty reduction), time (future vs. present value), identity (status, control, security)
The problem wasn’t “We need a better data catalog UI,” as the first client brief said. The real problem uncovered was that people cannot trust what they cannot see. Data, by its nature, can be fragmented, invisible, unowned, and change over time. So the real answer is to help humans find, trust, and act on invisible data.
It also means experience is not an interface. It is a perception constructed in the brain.
What people I worked with have to say
Himanshu provided great UX and UI design for our project at Deutsche Bank. He first created screen wireframes and then actual screen design. His work was very unusual and creative.