Catchpoint
2026
Redesigning Real User Monitoring to Streamline SRE Workflows and Drive Core Product Growth
In this case study, I share how I led the end‑to‑end redesign of Catchpoint’s Real User Monitoring experience—driving discovery, research, and product strategy to transform a fragmented workflow into a focused, high‑impact Smartboard that empowers SREs and IT teams to detect and resolve performance issues faster. By unifying complex monitoring dimensions into a clear, actionable interface, I delivered a solution that reduced diagnostic time, strengthened Catchpoint’s competitiveness in the RUM space, and elevated the product line into one of the company’s strongest offerings.
Overview
Reduce the average Mean Time to Detect and remediation of performance problems across Sites and Apps for IT Professionals
Catchpoint's Real user Monitoring solution is a monitoring and observability tool focused on helping IT professionals better understand spending activity and everyday financial workflows. The redesign explores how clearer hierarchy, improved dimensional visibility and actionable data reduces friction across sites and enables IT Professionals to improve the overall stability and performance of their sites and apps for end users.
The Impact
SREs and IT Teams using our Real User Monitoring tool experienced a 20% decrease in the time required to diagnose and remediate Site & App outages. Additionally our overall customer base using the RUM product line grew by more than 50% within the first 6 months after launching the new solution.
Problem
Monitoring Application changes felt unnecessarily difficult and tedious
Not being able to monitor performance for sites & apps effectively creates an inability for IT teams to efficiently pinpoint the cause and effect of performance changes within sites & apps creating a “monitoring blindness” that can lead to poor performance and unreliability creating user frustration and loss of traffic, transactions, and revenue.
01 - Weak hierarchy, 02 - Inconsistent spacing, 03 - Workflow friction
Research & Discovery
Looking beyond the numbers
To better understand where friction appeared while monitoring Real User data, I reviewed Site Reliability and Network Ops workflows and conducted user interviews with people regularly monitoring performance and updates within Sites & Apps. The research focused on how users utilized information, interpreted performance changes, and navigated everyday tasks across their tools and interfaces.
Competitive Analysis
In addition to conducting numerous rounds of user interviews with IT professionals, I conducted a competitive analysis of other key Real User Monitoring solutions to better help understand the frustrations customers were experiencing while using other similar tools.
What we learned
Searching thru all dimensions and combinations and dimensions to pinpoint a problem is a daunting tedious task with increased pressure during a crisis/outage
Engineers expressed a need for a consolidated view of their site performance that would help them hone into performance issues quickly and effectively enabling them to optimize their time on their number one goal, improving and enhancing their sites/apps rather than spending all their time fixing problems.
Teams are able to gather the most meaningful information by tracking page/screen performance trends and high level user session data as poor performance on a page or an aggressive drop-off in user sessions is the quickest indicator to a problem/outage.
Engineers care most about the data they have control over such as specific page/screen performance, how a app version is functioning after a code release and how their site/app is functioning in specific geographical locations with high traffic.
“Most of the time, I understood the numbers — I just didn’t understand what needed my attention first. I kept jumping between balances, transactions, and reports to make sure I wasn’t missing something important before taking action.”
Interview participant
Site Reliability Engineer
User Needs & Business Goals
Developing a cross-functional plan of execution
Following the insights we gained from IT Professionals monitoring Real User data, as a team we participated in collaborative discovery sprints involving the CTO, PMs, Engineers, and CSMs mapping out a working hypothesis, core feature requirements, overall business goals and any capacity constraints of our engineering team.
Working Hypothesis
To address the recurring challenges faced by IT Teams and to produce a focused solution, we established a working hypothesis for our project.
Our hypothesis posited that SREs and IT Teams, dealing with substantial daily and weekly code changes, deployments and updates to multiple sites/apps, would find it challenging to effectively monitor performance for all combinations of monitoring dimensions across every site/app.
Our proposed solution involved creating a centralized page that aggregates trending performance for each site/app, thereby equipping IT Teams with a valuable tool to streamline their monitoring strategies and improve diagnostic/remediation workflows while dealing with performance crisises.
User Needs & Business Goals
Research Insights
Users struggled with monitoring performance data for sites/apps across key vantage points in a effective way hindering MTTD/MTTR and overall site performance
A demand for a comprehensive interface was clear
Users sought features for easier monitoring and troubleshooting of sites/apps
More relevant and impactful data for analysis was crucial
Key Features Identified:
Monitor overall performance trends for sites & apps in an actionable way
Track errors and crashes
Ability to view granular data at individual session level to be understand a problem occurring
Design
Exploring interface Directions & Workflow Patterns
Creating User Flows & Site Map
Developed a detailed user flow diagram to visualize the step-by-step user journey
Identified pain points, bottlenecks, and potential optimization points within the flow
Formulated clear and concise narratives to guide design and development efforts
Designing the data flow
A user-centric interface that is effective for monitoring and troubleshooting while building and maintaining sites/apps
Workflow and data structured in a meaningful format allowing IT teams to make actionable decisions on things they have the most control over
The design aligns with IT professionals need for actionable and impactful data, enhancing their productivity and incident remediation
The outcome is a comprehensive solution exemplifying the successful integration of user needs, data management, and design execution.
Iterating on Use Flow Diagram with Feedback
Collaborated with PMs and engineering team to review the user flow diagram and data flow structure.
Incorporated technical insights and optimization suggestions into the diagram through interactive feedback loops.
Creation of Mid-Fidelity UI Screens
Guided by user insights and stakeholder feedback, I dived into the design phase. Starting with numerous structural ideas and data formatting, I envisioned a Real User Monitoring product experience elevated to be one of Catchpoint’s strongest product lines, effectively restructuring the way IT teams monitor and diagnose Real User data while managing the performance of their sites/apps.
High-Fidelity Prototype
User Testing & Outcomes
Designing for clarity, confidence, and everyday monitoring workflows
After completing the overall UI/workflow and successful alpha deployment, we conducted usability testing with our alpha users and domain experts. Thru multiple rounds of user testing we gathered detailed feedback to iterate on and expand our product offering. SREs engaged with the new interface, and their feedback provided invaluable insight into the efficacy of the centralized view in enhancing their monitoring and remediation strategies and what we could do to further improve upon our MVP.
Test Objectives
Test the ease of use and navigation of the RUM feature
Test the overall workflow and how our RUM tool integrates with their overall workflow
Observe any friction, frustration, or hesitation within user interactions
Gather any additional information around the data SREs use to monitor their sites
Test Conclusions
By incorporating insights from user research, iterative design, and cross-functional collaboration, a robust interaction framework was developed, prioritizing usability, relevance, and efficiency
This approach paved the way for smoother monitoring and diagnostic/remediation analysis, directly impacting user productivity and satisfaction
Through discovery and further conversations with users, we learned were additional areas of our feature that we could build out to further enhance our product to meet both user and business goals.
The success of the project extended beyond specific metrics, affirming effectiveness of the strategy in creating a foundational, user-focused design that resonates throughout the entire platform that could easily integrate into overall monitoring strategies for a broader audience of monitoring and observability professionals allowing for additional sources of revenue
Outcomes & Feedback
Following what we discovered thru user testing, there were additional areas of our feature we could add to create the most ideal monitoring solution for RUM IT teams. We learned thru discussion that tracking errors and crashes, and being able to track user journeys to help pinpoint pages with large amounts of errors/drop-offs would help users improve overall performance and stability of their sites’ and quickly figure out what types of problems are occurring during times of crisis.
User Journeys
RUM Session Replay
Errors & Crashes
