Company
Apple
Role
Product Designer
Redesigning the
Events Tool
Events is a centralized application built to capture and structure event data at scale. The redesign focused on improving data reliability for downstream products, aligning event categorization across multiple teams, and introducing flexibility to support a variety of business needs and objectives.
The Challenge
The existing Events tool contained many duplicate entries and inconsistent data, making it unreliable for downstream products. Without clear governance on how events were defined and created, teams interpreted the data differently, leading to misalignment across the organization.
How Might We
How might we create a system that ensures events are captured accurately and consistently, enabling better collaboration and reliable downstream use?
User Groups
Event Creators
Needed an easy, consistent way to capture event data that could be trusted and reused across multiple teams and applications.
Data Stewards
With only 5% of their time available for maintenance, stewards needed a faster, more efficient way to clean, edit, and maintain high-quality event data.
Data Readers (Consumers)
Wanted clean, well-organized event data that could flow into their systems without needing additional rework or manual cleanup.
Process
Discovery Workshops
Because the app was built years ago with little development or design support, we had to start from zero. We held at least four discovery workshops with business stakeholders to understand how the app works, how users interact with it, and what the major pain points were. (Much of the discovery focused on aligning on how different user roles should be defined.)Low-Fidelity Mockups
Based on the discovery insights, we created low-fidelity mockups and collaborated closely with business stakeholders, business system analysts, and developers to gather feedback and drive early alignment.Scope Definition
In parallel, we worked with the same group to clearly define what was in scope and out of scope for the redesign, helping manage expectations and set realistic goals.Usability Testing (with High-Fidelity Mockups)
We conducted usability tests with participants from each major user group (event creators, data stewards, readers) to validate the designs, uncover risks, and surface additional concerns.Proof of Concept Presentation
Finally, we presented the redesigned proof of concept to leadership, sharing user feedback, design rationale, and a roadmap for development. This helped us secure buy-in and resources for implementation.
Before
After
Learnings & Iterations
Because the tool was built years ago with little development or design support, it took significant effort to uncover technical debt and usability issues. It was initially overwhelming to realize the amount of development resources needed for a full overhaul.
Ultimately, leadership decided to pause the project and prioritize higher-impact tools our team supports. Although this was a tough business decision, it reflected a clear, real-world prioritization of resources.
One personal win was presenting the redesign to the original developers who built the tool. They shared that the new design meaningfully improved the user experience and was clearly grounded in thoughtful design decisions. Hearing their excitement about the redesign validated that we were on the right track.
Impact
Identified key usability and technical issues, bringing clarity and focus to leadership.
Validated a user-centered redesign that addressed real pain points across user groups.
Influenced leadership’s understanding of resource needs and project priorities.
Created a solid, tested foundation ready for future implementation.
Built trust with developers and stakeholders through thoughtful, collaborative design.