Senior Product Designer · Digital Products · Tokyo
Project metadata
My role: Lead Product Designer
Type: B2B internal tool
Platform: NAB Elevate / nabONE
Year: 2025
Case study · NAB · 2025
From spreadsheet chaos to compliance clarity
Redesigning NAB's AUSTRAC compliance workflow, replacing a 540-column spreadsheet with a focused B2B mini application that reduced analyst friction by 71%.
The Problem
Every day, NAB's compliance team received between 500 and 1,200 Transactional Threshold Records (TTRs) from AUSTRAC — Australia's financial intelligence agency. Each file arrived as a CSV, was manually distributed by a manager, and opened by analysts into a 540-column Excel spreadsheet.
Key stats
540+ columns in the legacy spreadsheet
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500–1,200 TTR files processed daily
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~$2M in annual AUSTRAC fines
With no logical grouping to the columns — which simply mirrored the raw CSV data — analysts had developed their own idiosyncratic ways of navigating the document: horizontal scrolling across hundreds of columns, switching between the spreadsheet and three separate third-party platforms, copying and pasting customer data, and leaving notes on individual cells for deficiency analysts and QA to find later.
When asked how they remembered their place mid-document, every analyst gave the same answer: "I'm just used to it." That answer represented significant regulatory risk. Discrepancies found by AUSTRAC after analyst sign-off triggered heavy fines — costing NAB approximately $2 million annually.
The Users
A dedicated compliance team of 14, each with a distinct role in the verification pipeline:
• 1 × Manager — daily file allocation and team coordination
• 1 × Lead Analyst — oversight and escalation
• 8 × Daily Analysts — primary users, working through TTR files
• 3 × Deficiency Analysts — handling flagged records requiring customer follow-up
• 1 × QA — final review and sign-off
My Process
• Contextual inquiry
I sat with multiple analysts and observed them working through complete TTR files end to end. I mapped every interaction: scrolling, cell entry, platform switching, copy-paste, note creation, file saving, and email handoff. This gave me a baseline friction score of 50 distinct interactions per file.
• Data architecture
I worked through all 540+ columns to identify natural groupings. Working with the team, we defined four core data categories: customer details, transaction details, presenter details, and branch details. This became the foundation for a tabbed interface — replacing horizontal scrolling with a single-page, category-by-category flow.
• Co-design with power users
I involved analysts consistently throughout, testing lo-fi wireframes and IA flows to ensure the interface matched real working patterns, not assumptions. The goal was a tool so intuitive it required little to no onboarding.
• Constraint-led prototyping
The product had to sit within NAB's nabONE shell as a mini application, designed using the Elevate design system. Side sheets — a common pattern across other B2B mini apps — were off the table due to unresolved shell conflicts at MVP1 release speed. I redesigned information presentation to work entirely within a single page, breaking a system-wide pattern with a considered alternative.
• Friction benchmarking
I compared the average interaction count on the final design against the 50-interaction baseline. The result: 15 interactions per file — a 71% reduction in process friction.
The Outcome
Before: 50 interactions per TTR file
After: 15 interactions per TTR file
Result: 71% reduction in process friction
By eliminating horizontal scrolling, structuring data into four logical categories, and building flagging and note-taking directly into the interface, the new tool significantly reduced both cognitive load and error risk. The business was able to progress automation planning across data-check patterns and reassess team resourcing — outcomes that had not been possible within the legacy spreadsheet model.
Key Constraints & Decisions
• Designed within NAB's Elevate design system, maintaining brand and accessibility standards throughout.
• Side sheet components were excluded from the design one month before delivery date due to unresolved cross-management conflicts with the nabONE shell at MVP1, requiring a deliberate pattern break and a re-design alternative that still met all user needs.
• Delivered under tight timelines for a fast MVP1 release, with no cross-management dependencies on the nabONE team.
• All work is confidential under NDA.