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Redesigning complex operational workflows to simplify global telephone number management

Bandwidth - Inventory Management

Redesigning complex operational workflows to simplify global telephone number management

Bandwidth’s internal Operations teams manage thousands of telephone numbers across multiple international markets every day. As the platform evolved through acquisitions and regional expansion, the experience became increasingly fragmented. Navigation varied between countries, key actions were difficult to find, and users often relied on experience rather than the interface to complete everyday tasks.

I led the end to end redesign of the Inventory Management experience, transforming a fragmented, region-based platform into a task-focused workflow that improved usability, reduced operational friction and established a scalable foundation for future internal products.

Faster task completion
↑ 0 %
Reduction in support requests
↓ 0 %
Reduction in navigation errors
0 %
Internal user satisfaction
0 /5
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Bandwidth Universal Platform - Inventory Management (Admin)

Role

Senior UX Designer, Lead

Duration

~5 months

TEAM

UX Manager, Product Managers, Compliance Operations, Engineering and Front End Developers

01. Problem

A critical operational tool that no longer matched how teams worked

Inventory Management supports the provisioning and management of telephone numbers across Bandwidth’s global network.

As the platform expanded through acquisitions and new market growth, the experience became increasingly difficult to navigate. Different regions followed different interaction patterns, common actions were buried within dense interfaces, and users often depended on support teams to complete routine tasks.

What began as a usability issue had become an operational challenge.

“Finding a single number could take minutes. You just had to know where to look.”

Compliance Operations Analyst

Business Impact

  • Provisioning delays slowed operational throughput
  • Support teams spent time answering avoidable questions
  • Inconsistent workflows made scaling increasingly difficult

User Pain Impact

  • Navigation felt different across regions
  • Bulk actions were difficult to discover
  • Users relied on memory instead of system guidance
  • Reviewing inventory often required multiple screens

02. Challenge

Understanding the complexity of global provisioning

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Legacy Voxbone interface - fragmented, inconsistent, and difficult to scale

The challenge was not simply that the interface looked outdated.

The platform had been organised around countries and inherited backend structures. Operational teams, however, thought about their work very differently. They focused on tasks such as assigning numbers, reviewing status, resolving issues and managing groups.

The gap between system structure and operational behaviour was where most of the friction existed.

Key Challenges

  • Navigation varied across country modules
  • Group and TN information were mixed together
  • Bulk actions were hidden or inconsistent
  • Tables were dense and difficult to scan
  • Users lacked a reliable mental model of where to go next

Root Cause

Research revealed that users naturally organised work around tasks, while the platform organised information around regions and system entities.This mismatch became the primary problem to solve.

03. Objective

Creating a clear and scalable operational experience

The goal was to redesign Inventory Management around how operational teams actually worked.

I needed an experience that improved accuracy, reduced dependency on support teams and could scale as Bandwidth entered new markets.

Success meant creating a platform that was easier to navigate, easier to learn and easier to scale.

Success Criteria
  • Clear orientation and navigation across all modules
  • Faster completion of high-frequency workflows
  • Reduced reliance on support teams
  • Consistent patterns across international markets
  • Improved visibility into inventory status and actions
  • A scalable IA foundation aligned with the BluePrint Design System

04. Discovery & Insights

Understanding how teams really worked

Rather than starting with assumptions, I spent time observing operational teams during live workflows.

I watched how analysts searched for numbers, managed inventory groups, investigated issues and completed provisioning tasks. These observations were combined with a heuristic evaluation, card sorting workshops, stakeholder interviews and usability testing.

The objective was to understand how users naturally approached their work and identify where the current experience was creating friction.

Research Activities

  • Heuristic Evaluation

    Audited the existing experience and identified recurring issues in navigation, hierarchy and interaction consistency.

  • Card Sorting Workshops

    Conducted sessions with eight participants from Compliance Operations and Support teams to understand how users grouped tasks and information.

  • Workflow Observation

    Observed live operational workflows to identify delays, workarounds and repeated navigation patterns.

  • Stakeholder Workshops

    Aligned operational, product and engineering priorities around key workflows.

  • Usability Testing

    Validated early concepts and information architecture decisions before implementation.

Legacy workflow: repetitive, unclear, and reliant on support

What card sorting revealed

One of the strongest patterns emerged during card sorting.

Participants consistently grouped work around operational tasks rather than countries or inventory structures.

Instead of thinking in regions, users thought in actions:

  • Manage Groups
  • Manage Numbers
  • Resolve Issues
  • Configure Rules

This insight became the foundation for the new information architecture.

Personas

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Maria T.

Operations Support

Supports provisioning escalations across 12+ international regions and manages a high volume of operational requests daily.

Needs fast visibility into TN history, status changes, and grouping logic without cross-checking multiple systems.

Biggest frustration:

“I spend too much time figuring out where something lives before I can actually fix it.”

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Alex R.

Compliance Ops Administrator

Manages high-volume provisioning across multiple regions and needs quick visibility into groups, filters, and status changes.

Frustrated by having to click through multiple screens to complete simple actions.

Biggest frustration:

“I know the data exists. The hard part is finding it quickly.”

Journey Mapping

Mapping the provisioning journey highlighted where users repeatedly left their current task to find supporting information.

The biggest delays occurred when:

  • Searching for numbers
  • Validating status information
  • Reviewing assignment history
  • Performing bulk actions

These findings directly influenced the navigation model, filter structure and workflow redesign.

Key insights

  • Users relied on memory rather than navigation Many users could complete tasks only because they knew where information lived from experience.
  • Bulk actions were hidden Common actions were buried within menus and often overlooked.
  • Group and TN data were mixed together Users struggled to distinguish between inventory-level and number-level actions.
  • Filters did not reflect user behaviour Search and filtering options were structured around system logic rather than operational workflows.
  • Inconsistency increased errors Different regional experiences reduced confidence and created unnecessary mistakes.
  • Research-Informed Opportunities

The research also highlighted opportunities beyond the initial redesign. These ideas were not part of the first release but emerged from recurring behavioural patterns observed during discovery.

Intelligent navigation

Surface relevant next steps based on workflow context.

Context-aware actions

Recommend the most relevant actions based on selected inventory.

Smarter filtering

Suggest commonly used filter combinations to reduce search effort.

Predictive guidance

Identify potential errors before actions are submitted.

05. IA & Workflow Redesign

Reorganising the platform around how teams actually worked

The research made one thing clear. Users thought about their work in terms of tasks, while the platform organised information around countries and inherited system structures. As a result, analysts regularly repeated the same navigation patterns across multiple regions simply to complete related tasks.

The redesign shifted the experience from a country-based structure to a task-based model. This created a more predictable mental model and reduced the amount of navigation required to complete common workflows.

Before

  • • Country-based navigation fragmented workflows
  • • Bulk actions hidden within nested menus
  • • No clear hierarchy or orientation
  • • TN and Group information mixed together
  • • Dense tables with poor scanability
  • • Limited visibility into status and history

After

  • • Four task-focused modules, Groups, TNs, Alerts, Templates
  • • Separated Group and TN management
  • • Standardised filters and table structures
  • • Contextual navigation and breadcrumbs
  • • Actions surfaced where users needed them

Future

  • • Predictive alerts for issues and expirations
  • • AI-assisted provisioning suggestions
  • • Automated number state transitions
  • • Operational dashboards with real-time insights
Al-Enhanced

Why four modules?

Card sorting and workflow observation revealed that nearly every task fell into one of four categories:
  • Manage inventory groups
  • Manage telephone numbers
  • Monitor issues and exceptions
  • Configure provisioning rules
The new structure reflected these natural user groupings rather than backend system architecture.

What changed structurally?

  • Persistent top-level navigation replaced country drill-down
  • TN and Group information moved into separate experiences
  • Filters redesigned around operational workflows
  • Breadcrumbs improved orientation
  • Bulk actions surfaced directly inside workflows

06. Wireframing & Iteration

Exploring different approaches before committing to a new structure

The task-based IA was not the first solution explored. Several concepts were tested before arriving at the final model.

Concept One

Enhanced country navigation

This retained regional structures while improving visual hierarchy.
Users still struggled because they needed to move between countries to complete related work.
Rejected
Concept Two

Regional hub model

This grouped countries into larger operational regions.
Although navigation improved slightly, users still thought in tasks rather than geography.
Rejected
Final Concept

Task-based architecture

  • Groups
  • TNs
  • Alerts
  • Templates
This structure consistently performed better during testing and aligned closely with the mental models revealed during research.
Accepted

Design Principles

These principles directly informed every major design decision throughout the project.

  • Reduce cognitive load

    Separated Group and TN information into dedicated views.

  • Standardise patterns

    Applied consistent table, filter and action layouts across all modules.

  • Improve wayfinding

    Introduced persistent navigation, breadcrumbs and contextual page titles.

  • Progressive disclosure

    Displayed advanced functionality only when relevant.

07. Design Execution

Making dense operational workflows easier to navigate

Internal tools often need to expose large amounts of information. The challenge was not removing complexity. It was organising complexity. The redesign focused on helping users stay oriented while working across high-volume inventory data.

01

Guided structure and hierarchy

Sticky headers and persistent filters ensured users maintained context while scrolling.
Large datasets became easier to navigate because critical information remained visible.
02

Context-aware actions

Actions such as Assign, Remove and Export appeared only when relevant.
This reduced interface clutter and made key actions easier to discover.
03

Visibility and control

Improved status indicators, clearer grouping logic and consolidated detail views gave users greater confidence when reviewing inventory.

Before vs After

Assign a Number to a Group

Before
  • 8+ clicks across multiple screens
  • Repeated navigation
  • Limited confirmation feedback
After
  • Single contextual workflow
  • Clear status visibility
  • Reduced navigation overhead
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Inventory Management (Admin) - Number to a Group

Review TN status & history

Before
  • Information spread across multiple views
  • Manual cross-referencing required
After
  • Consolidated lifecycle view
  • Clear audit trail
  • Remove Expired TNs
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Inventory Management (Admin) - Number Status and History

Remove Expired TNs

Before
  • Manual row-by-row updates
  • Time-consuming and repetitive
After
  • Bulk actions surfaced contextually
  • Significantly faster completion
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Inventory Management (Admin) - Removing Number Bulk Tool
  • Weekly Compliance Reviews
  • API Dev Pairing
  • Design QA with FE
  • Iterative User Testing
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Design System Integration

Every component was built using Bandwidth’s BluePrint Design System.

  • Reusable filter patterns
  • Reusable table components
  • Accessible interaction states
  • Shared documentation for future projects

The work contributed reusable patterns that could be adopted across other internal tools.

Blueprint Design System

08. Guided Walkthrough

What the new journey looks like

The redesigned experience gives users a predictable path through the platform. The journey was designed to reduce unnecessary navigation and keep users focused on completing their task.

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STEP 1

Select the relevant task area

STEP 2

Filter by region, status or inventory type

STEP 3

Review contextual information

STEP 4

Take action directly within the workflow

STEP 5

Receive immediate feedback and confirmation

09. Testing & Outcomes

Validating the redesign

The redesigned workflows were evaluated through moderated usability testing, A/B comparisons and task-based validation sessions.

Participants completed the same workflows in both the legacy and redesigned experiences.

Evaluation methods

  • Usability testing
  • Task completion analysis
  • Navigation error tracking
  • A/B workflow comparison
  • Qualitative feedback sessions
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Inventory Management - Usability Test

How success was measured

Task completion time
Measured during usability testing
Navigation errors
Measured during moderated sessions
Support tickets
Measured through operational reporting after launch
Satisfaction score
Collected through post-launch feedback

10. Impact

Creating a foundation for future operational tools

35%

Faster task completion

27%

Fewer support tickets

30%

Fewer navigation errors

4.6 / 5

Internal satisfaction score

What changed behaviourally

The most significant outcome was confidence. Participants stopped asking where to go next. They navigated directly to the information they needed and completed tasks with fewer interruptions.

User feedback

"For the first time, I don't have to think about where things are. I just go straight there."
Compliance Operations Analyst
"Bulk actions alone have saved us a huge amount of time."
Operations Support Specialist

The redesign improved more than a single workflow. It introduced a scalable approach to information architecture and interaction design that could be reused across other internal platforms.

Business

  • Faster provisioning workflows
  • Reduced support dependency
  • Lower operational risk

Product

  • Reusable IA framework
  • Stronger design system adoption
  • Improved design and engineering alignment

User

  • Faster task completion
  • Greater confidence
  • Improved visibility and control

Stakeholder feedback

"The new layout finally makes sense. I can find, filter and fix issues faster without asking for help."
Compliance Operations Analyst
"This redesign drastically improved team efficiency and became a reference point for future internal tools."
Product Manager

11. Future Opportunities

Where this work can evolve next

Several opportunities emerged during research but sat outside the scope of the initial redesign. These ideas are based on behavioural patterns observed during discovery and testing.

Predictive alerts

Identify provisioning issues before intervention is required.

AI-assisted validation

Reduce errors by highlighting potential issues before submission.

Workflow automation

Reduce manual effort across repetitive operational processes.

Operational analytics

Provide greater visibility into inventory health and team efficiency.

What I Would Do Differently

Looking back, the team prioritised the highest-friction workflows first. Given more time, I would have expanded research into onboarding and training experiences for newer team members, as these users experienced the greatest friction. I would also explore deeper integration between operational workflows and backend tooling to reduce some of the dependencies that still existed beyond the interface. The project demonstrated that not every operational problem can be solved through UX alone. Some of the biggest opportunities sat at the intersection of process, tooling and platform architecture.

Reflection

“Good internal UX removes friction quietly.”

This project reinforced a belief I have carried throughout my career.

Internal users deserve the same level of care, clarity and intentional design as external customers. The teams using Inventory Management relied on the platform every day to do their jobs. Improving that experience was not simply a usability improvement. It directly affected operational efficiency, confidence and productivity. The project also reinforced the importance of information architecture. The decisions made during discovery shaped every workflow, screen and interaction that followed.

Finally, it demonstrated the value of design systems. By building within BluePrint, we created reusable patterns that improved consistency, accelerated delivery and continued to provide value beyond the project itself. When people stop thinking about the tool and start focusing on the work, design is doing its job.

Selected projects​

Redesigning complex operational workflows to simplify global telephone number management

Bandwidth's internal Operations teams manage thousands of telephone numbers across multiple international markets every day. As the platform evolved through acquisitions and regional expansion, the experience became increasingly fragmented. Navigation varied between countries, key actions were difficult to find, and users often relied on experience rather than the interface to complete everyday tasks. I led the end to end redesign...

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