Fidelity Investments · Fintech

Stratum: API Producer and Consumer Dashboard

A one-stop platform for the full lifecycle of internal APIs

Faster to locate API docs: 42%
Higher onboarding task success: 33%
FDS compliance, up from ~45%: 95%

Challenge framing

"How might we create a one-stop solution for API producers and consumers, in a way that reduces the bottleneck of creating and maintaining REST APIs, so that the effort of daily operations are optimized?"

Fidelity Investments maintains a strict policy around sharing internal work publicly. The information and visuals in this case study have been modified to show user-agnostic details in compliance with the non-disclosure agreements that were signed.

Platform and build

Stratum was as much an engineering collaboration as a design project. I worked inside the codebase alongside the engineers.

Built on Backstage, Spotify's open-source developer portal framework, with the frontend implemented in Next.js.
Wrote UI component code myself instead of stopping at design handoff.
Used the Fidelity Design System (FDS) to translate designs into shipped components.
Collaborated on release scoping, MVP definition, and success metrics with squad leads.
Conducted extensive expert interviews with API producers, consumers, and platform stakeholders.

Overview

"Stratum" is Fidelity’s internal DevOps platform designed to help API producers manage the full lifecycle of APIs, from creation and onboarding to monitoring and governance. It serves as a central hub for discovering APIs, exploring metadata and documentation, managing rate limits, and tracking consumer usage and approvals.

The problem

The existing Stratum experience had significant usability challenges, resulting in reduced platform adoption, user frustration, and inefficiencies for developers managing APIs:

Inconsistent navigation and poor information hierarchy made it difficult for users to locate APIs and related metadata.
Non-compliance with Fidelity Design System (FDS) standards led to visual inconsistencies across internal tools.
Key user journeys, such as API onboarding and approval tracking, involved multiple disconnected steps.

Current vs. future state

Current state

Future state

There are many steps involved in creating and publishing an API, and it is very cumbersome for the user to get through them.

A guided, step-by-step creation and publishing flow that cuts the time to ship a new API.

Each business unit inside Fidelity has different documentation around the production and use case of APIs.

A unified documentation framework with standardized templates and metadata, ensuring consistency and discoverability across all business units.

There is no proper channel for API producers to communicate with consumers.

A messaging module where API producers and consumers exchange feedback inside the platform.

Producers are unable to track key metrics or even see a full list of who is consuming their APIs.

A centralized analytics dashboard providing producers with real-time visibility into API usage, key performance metrics, and consumer activity.

Some business units work with confidential information, and those APIs are more difficult to deal with.

Enhanced access controls and role-based permissions that securely handle confidential APIs while maintaining ease of management for authorized users.

Project timeline

Five phases over 17 weeks, from discovery to deployment.

5 weeks

Discover

Conducted 50+ interviews with the core user base to understand their pain points with API production and consumption.
Conducted a data synthesis session to isolate the common themes from the interviews.
Came up with a value proposition for the new Stratum.

3 weeks

Define

Created journey maps for API producers and consumers.
Created grayscale wireframes based on previous interviews.
Narrowed the scope of the project to focus only on Stratum for producers.

3 weeks

Ideate

Refined the wireframes and created a unified flow for API producers using Figma.
Conducted wireframe-specific interviews with users to test the solution.
Gathered positive NPS for the new flow of Stratum.

2 weeks

Design

Translated the wireframes into UI screens.
Used Fidelity Design System (FDS) to align with the company’s brand and UI guidelines.
Built pixel-accurate screens and animated prototypes.

4 weeks

Deployment

Partnered with the front-end development team to build the new Stratum dashboard using React.js.
Conducted unit and component testing using Cypress.
Conducted accessibility testing using a JAWS reader to ensure compliance.

My role

Senior UX Designer (Research + Design System Integration)

Led the full redesign of the Stratum platform experience.
Conducted 150+ expert interviews with SMEs across multiple business units.
Partnered with Product Managers, API Engineers, and DevOps stakeholders to identify core pain points and prioritize feature improvements.
Conducted usability evaluations and heuristic audits of the legacy system.
Applied Fidelity’s Design System (FDS) to ensure consistency, accessibility, and compliance across layouts and components.
Collaborated with the UI engineering team to validate design feasibility and ensure smooth handoff through Figma-to-code workflows.

Approach

Discovery & Research: Conducted contextual inquiries with API producers and consumers to map their workflows and identify key friction points.
IA Redesign: Restructured navigation and taxonomy around user mental models.
Interaction & Visual Design: Created modular, reusable layouts in Figma aligned with FDS; implemented dark-mode variants for internal developer tools.
Usability Validation: Ran remote moderated tests with internal users; iterated based on task-completion rates and qualitative feedback.
Implementation Support: Collaborated with front-end engineers during sprint reviews to ensure design fidelity and address component-library gaps.

Stratum: API Producer and Consumer Dashboard

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