On a tight one-week deadline, I led the end-to-end design and authoring of an interactive, in-app Pendo walkthrough for Informatica’s Cloud Data Governance and Catalog (CDGC). Collaborating with Product Management and Content Experience teams, I created a guided onboarding experience to help users enable essential services and connectors within a Secure Agent group.
Overview
I designed and implemented an in-app guide to streamline the configuration of Secure Agent services, a critical step in the CDGC onboarding journey. The project involved translating complex technical requirements into a series of interactive steps, ensuring users could successfully enable the Metadata Foundation Application and Metadata Platform Service. By leveraging GIFs, contextual tooltips, and precise UI anchoring, I transformed a multi-step administrative task into a guided experience that reduces cognitive load and prevents user drop-off.
The Problem
Users frequently struggled to navigate the CDGC onboarding process, specifically the manual configuration of Secure Agent services. Key challenges included:
High cognitive load: The process required users to toggle between documentation and multiple UI tabs (Services, Connectors).
Complex dependencies: Certain services needed to be verified as "Up and Running" only after specific configurations were saved, leading to user confusion.
Goals
To address these challenges, the project aimed to:
Simplify onboarding: Provide a step-by-step walkthrough that guides users through the Administrator and CDGC interfaces.
Ensure guide stability: Implement a robust navigation strategy that works across various user configurations and row names.
Enhance visual clarity: Use optimized multimedia to orient users without obscuring critical UI elements.
Approach & Strategy
I collaborated in a fast-paced, iterative loop with Content Designer and Customer Experience leads to refine the guide’s logic and visual clarity.
Cross-functional alignment: Partnered with Content Designer and Customer Experience leads to identify the specific services (Amazon S3, Oracle) and connectors required for the CDGC license.
Dynamic navigation: Used optimized GIFs to demonstrate "Actions" menu access, bypasssing unreliable CSS selectors to ensure guide stability across all user environments.
UX optimization: Tested caret positioning and page locations to ensure tooltips remained visible and did not obscure critical UI elements during interaction.
Feedback & Iteration
Working with the Content Design and Customer Experience teams and receiving feedback after each draft, I put the guide through a rigorous review cycle to eliminate friction. I restructured the step logic to prevent the guide from breaking during live interactions, stabilized UI anchoring to ensure persistence during scrolling, and tightened the copy to be strictly action-oriented. These iterations transformed a technically dense configuration into a high-completion onboarding flow.
Next Steps & Sustainability
To ensure the guide remains a permanent and effective part of the CDGC ecosystem, I completed the following:
Completed: Finalized integration of the "Enabling Services" walkthrough into the global CDGC Onboarding Assistant menu.
Completed: Conducted a final hand-off demo with the Customer Experience team to ensure they can update service requirements as the product evolves.
This was designed in Pendo, so over time, we’ll receive user feedback metrics such as clicks, views, errors, and more.
Project Roles:
Content Designer
UX Designer