Led the UX strategy and redesign that migrated a mission-critical WinForms diagnostic application to Angular — reducing navigation depth, context switching, and cognitive load while preserving the speed and mental models expert casino operators had built over years of daily use.
Diagnostic Monitor is one of the primary operational tools within the Oasis 360 Casino Management System. Technicians, floor managers, and operations teams rely on it in real time to monitor machine health, investigate transactions, track work orders, review meter data, and troubleshoot gaming machines.
The application had evolved over many years as a Windows desktop product — powerful, but shaped by traditional desktop patterns: deeply nested notebooks and tabs, disconnected information views, heavy dependence on user memory, constant context switching, and dense tables with no visual hierarchy.
As part of the platform modernization initiative, the application was migrating from WinForms to Angular. The goal I set was not a visual replica — it was a better way of working, built on the trusted workflows expert operators depended on daily.
The question was never "How do we rebuild the Windows application in Angular?" It was "How might we reduce cognitive load and speed up investigations — while preserving the efficiency expert users have earned over years?"
— Pooja Kudesia, UX Lead
That reframe expanded the success criteria far beyond feature parity:
Using the Diagnostic Monitor Guidebook, I mapped all nine operational workflows — Current & Maintenance Notebooks, Transactions, Live Meters, Work Orders, Personal Banker, Voucher History, Meter History, and Maintenance Activity — tracing how users actually move through investigations, not just what each screen contains.
Multiple review sessions with product owners and SMEs separated mandatory operational behavior from UX opportunity. Several enhancements — health summary cards, anomaly detection, persistent column preferences — were deliberately deferred because they introduced operational risk or backend dependency. Knowing what not to ship was a leadership decision.
The pivotal finding: these are not novice users. Technicians know machine numbers, meter names, and work order terminology. They prioritize speed over guidance and prefer high information density. This single insight shaped nearly every design trade-off that followed.
Instead of grouping 90 machine meters into tidy categories, I preserved the flat list — because experienced users scan faster than they browse. A deliberate trade-off: efficiency over textbook discoverability.
— The decision that defined the design philosophy
Replaced duplicated notebook-tab navigation with a predictable hierarchy: top navigation for primary areas, left navigation for secondary, a persistent Machine Information Panel for context, and dashboards/tables for content. Navigation depth dropped significantly, and behavior became consistent across the entire application.
Fragmented tabs became one unified Machine Details dashboard — machine identity, meters, door status, player information, work orders, failures, and repair history in a single operational overview.
💡 Eliminated tab-switching for the most frequent daily taskA technician troubleshooting a machine previously bounced between several notebook pages. Contextual panels now surface machine details, player information, door status, work orders, and recent activity — without losing place mid-investigation.
Enterprise tables became the core interaction model: improved column ordering, search, filtering, export, pagination, and column visibility. Repeated machine attributes were removed from on-screen tables — they already live in the machine header — while being retained in exports for downstream reporting.
Collapsible machine information, contextual detail panels, expandable workflows, and filter-first interactions reduced visual overload without removing a single capability.
Not every textbook UX recommendation was adopted — deliberately. High data density, flat meter lists, minimal interaction steps, and familiar terminology were preserved so long-time users could transition with near-zero disruption.
⚖️ Trade-off led: expert speed over novice hand-holdingPersistent top navigation, contextual left navigation, and a predictable two-level hierarchy across every module.
Machine details, meter summary, player information, door status, work orders, and activity — one centralized view.
Search, filters, refined column order, transaction gap highlighting, and export — dramatically less scanning effort.
Work orders, verification, repair history, and activity logs redesigned on one consistent layout across all maintenance screens.
Angular Material patterns — responsive layouts, cards, tables, drawers, reusable components — a scalable foundation for future modules.
Multiple notebook tabs consolidated into a two-level hierarchy — fewer interactions to reach related information.
Player information, door status, work orders, and machine details embedded in one dashboard — fewer screen changes per investigation.
Persistent search, filters, logical column ordering, and contextual grouping shorten time-to-data.
Duplicate information removed, navigation simplified, progressive disclosure applied — without sacrificing data density.
Reusable layouts and interaction patterns create predictable behavior across Live Monitor and Maintenance modules.
The redesign establishes baselines for time-to-locate a machine, investigation speed, work order efficiency, SUS satisfaction, task completion, and operator training time.
Aggressive simplification, heavy categorization, and automatic highlighting are textbook-good UX — and I rejected them, because they conflicted with how experienced casino operators actually work. Expert users value speed, familiarity, and density over guided experiences. Knowing when to break the rules is the job.
Rather than replacing established workflows, the redesign removed friction while preserving the mental models users built over years. That choice reduced adoption risk and materially increased stakeholder confidence in the modernization program.
Collaborative design reviews distinguished improvements that genuinely enhance operational efficiency from those adding complexity or exceeding release scope. The result: a modernized mission-critical product that never sacrificed the speed and reliability its users depend on.
I'm open to senior design leadership and Head of UX opportunities.
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