API Capabilities Into the User Interface

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As the platform’s APIs evolved—introducing new capabilities like advanced asset management—the Console needed to keep pace. For most users, the Console is the first point of contact and the primary workspace for daily operations, so the interface had to reflect what the APIs could do while remaining approachable and organized.

The goal was to expose powerful new functionality without overwhelming users.

 

UP42 2022

Product Designer & Researcher

Why This Work Mattered

  • New User Onboarding: Most users explore the Console long before touching SDKs or API routes.

  • Admin & Operational Workflows: Teams relied on the Console for workspace management, asset organization, and day-to-day decision-making.

  • API Expansion: As asset-related endpoints moved to a new service, the Console needed to support this transition visually and structurally.

First Iteration Priorities

  • Integrate new asset endpoints

  • Add search, sorting, tagging, and reference naming

  • Enable filtering across workspaces and accounts

Solution Overview

Timeline: 4–5 weeks

Team: 1 Designer + Engineering collaboration

This project centered on bringing powerful API flexibility into a clean, predictable UX.

1. Research & Discovery

Conducted interviews with five active users to identify friction points in the existing asset list.

Key Insight:

Users consistently described assets as difficult to navigate. The lack of sorting, tagging, or naming structures made large datasets unmanageable.

Additionally, the API offered many capabilities that were too complex to surface directly—so the design required careful simplification.

2. Design & Validation

Prototypes & UI Concepts

  • Built sortable table layouts

  • Designed tag creation and management flows

  • Added multi-level filters for accounts and workspaces

  • Ensured designs aligned with the technical migration to the new asset service

User Testing

Tested flows with the same interview group:

  • Sorting + tagging significantly reduced asset clutter

  • Reference naming helped teams maintain consistency across integrations

  • Users found filtering intuitive and “finally scalable” for large datasets

3. Handoff & Strategic Outlook

Delivered developer-ready Figma files with usage notes and interaction patterns.
This release established the foundation for future Console improvements—transforming asset management into a scalable, API-aligned experience.

Impact

Streamlined Workflows

Users can now efficiently search, tag, filter, and organize assets.

Aligned With API Growth

The Console reflects new backend capabilities and can evolve as more features are added.

Foundation for Scalability

This project set the groundwork for a broader vision of asset and storage management across the platform.