Demelza Sutherland
Console Connect · Navigation · 2023–2026
Designing navigation for an evolving platform.
Console Connect had grown beyond its navigation and information architecture. Over three years, I helped reshape that structure into a more scalable, accessible system — while the platform continued to grow and change.
MULTIPLE PRODUCT SHIFTS · ONE EVOLVING NAVIGATION SYSTEM
At a glance...
THE CHALLENGE
Redesign navigation for a growing platform whose existing structure could no longer accommodate the product — while the product itself continued to evolve.
THE WORK
Information architecture, navigation design, usability testing and iteration, while simplifying a complex experience across products, permissions and screen sizes.
MY ROLE
Led the information architecture and design through multiple iterations, working with product, engineering and stakeholders to resolve constraints and validate the experience.
Final navigation in production
CONSOLE CONNECT · 2026
We had run out of room.
The sidebar navigation couldn’t keep up with the expanding platform. On some viewports, navigation extended beyond the screen, leaving some destinations inaccessible.
At the same time, the product itself was changing.
Console Connect originally included a community experience called MeetingPlace. As the platform evolved, the focus shifted toward product discovery and community features were progressively retired.
MeetingPlace became Marketplace...
MEETINGPLACE
Featured
Data Centres
Categories
Companies
People
Articles
Activity
Community
Training
NEED ASSISTANCE?
Visit the Help Centre
Contact us
Chat with support
Ask the community
Communityfeaturesgraduallyretired
Supportmoved to a dedicatedmenu
{
{
but not everything came with it.
MARKETPLACE
Products
NEW
Data Centres
Companies
People
Partner Offers
NEW
“Anything to do with browsing and purchasing of any kind, I’m going to go to that Marketplace.”
ACCOUNTS PROJECT MANAGER · MODERATED USABILITY STUDY
From an early concept to a working system.
As the concept developed, the problem shifted from designing a mega menu to designing a navigation system that could accommodate different content, states and contexts.
Early mega menu concept
By Design Lead
Now things were getting interesting...
Ideas began to converge.
The information architecture evolved into our first interactive prototype. It brought the new structure, patterns and product groupings together into a single experience for the first time.
Interactive prototype
October 2023
Now for the reality check.
Our UX researcher ran moderated usability sessions covering 21 common tasks across the new Dashboard, Marketplace, Solutions, Community and Help mega menus.
21
tasks
7
participants
45
min sessions
Some things worked.Some definitely didn’t.
The first round of testing validated much of the emerging structure, but also exposed where our assumptions didn’t match our users’ expectations.
WHAT WORKED
The Dashboard made sense.
Participants consistently looked to the Dashboard for the services they owned. This validated the role of the Dashboard for managing existing services.
“Everything that I have, or have access to, would be in the Dashboard.”
WHAT WORKED
‘Solutions’ meant services.
Participants understood Solutions as a place to explore Console Connect services, particularly for a new or specific use case.
“For services, I would go to Solutions.”
WHERE WE NEED TO IMPROVE
Some content didn’t have a clear home.
Help, learning content, company discovery and pricing were less predictable. There was overlap between Marketplace, Community and Help.
“I wasn’t sure if it was in Marketplace or Solutions.”
KEY TAKEAWAY
The foundation was strong. Now we need to refine it.
The research gave us confidence in the core structure and naming, while highlighting key areas to clarify and simplify. These insights directly shaped the next iteration of navigation.
On the right track...but still lots to improve
The structure worked. But the details needed refinement.
The overall structure had tested well, but some important destinations buried in the mega menus and others weren’t where participants expected them to be. The next iteration focused on improving hierarchy, findability and reducing competition in the navigation.
A cleaner structurewas emerging
01
VISUAL REFINEMENT
We simplified the styling, the white with the gradient brand logo treatment created a clean, distinctive header.
02
PRICING ELEVATED
The Pricing Calculator moved back to the primary navigation bar after testing showed it was too important to bury.
03
RESPONSIVE SEARCH
Search expands into available space (or below the navigation when space is limited) when hovered or clicked.
04
UTILITIES SIMPLIFIED
Messages and alerts were consolidated into a single Notifications trigger.
05
ACCOUNT MENU
A new Account mega menu brought together personal and company settings, orders and billing.
The next prototype was a big leap forward.
Better account management
We introduced a new Account mega menu, bringing together Personal and Company settings, Orders & Billing. Orders moved out of Dashboard, creating a clearer distinction between managing services and managing the account.
Supporting the journey
Dashboard and Account mega menus introduced guidance for new customers — from creating or joining a company and setting up billing, to understanding which services to explore first.
Simplifying support
Support was reorganised around how people actually seek help, separating self-service options from assisted support.
Interactive prototype
November 2023
Large desktop
Full mega menu with four columns
One system, whatever the viewport.
As space reduces, the same navigation components reorganise — from a large mega menu to a compact menu and eventually a navigation drawer. The underlying system remains the same.
Small laptop
For larger mega menus navigational components reorganise to fit constrained viewport widths.
Tablet
Top navigation collapses into a drawer, while the same menu components are preserved.
Mobile · Navigation closed
Primary navigation collapses while key utilities remain accessible.
Mobile · Navigation open
Top level destination become accordions in a single column drawer.
Mobile · Navigation section expanded
The same menu components used in the mega menus stack vertically within the drawer.
The design worked in Figma. Now it had to survive engineering.
Refinement was collaborative. Product, design and engineering broke the navigation apart, challenged assumptions and worked through how it would behave within the existing platform.
COMPONENT IDENTIFICATION · NAVIGATION WORKSHOP DECEMBER 2024
“Massive appreciation to Brent and Demelza for the effective refinement sessions. The pieces are really starting to come together now.”
ENGINEER · TEAM RETROSPECTIVE
The IA didn’t stop at the navigation.
Changing the navigation exposed inconsistencies deeper in the product. URLs, breadcrumbs and page titles had drifted out of alignment over time, so I worked through them as part of the same information architecture.
NAVIGATION
→
BREADCRUMBS
→
URLS
→
PAGE TITLES
ACCESSIBILITY
Page titles were also refactored so every page had a unique title, rather than the duplicate titles that existed previously.
The product kept evolving. So did the navigation.
The navigation was not designed once and left untouched. As Console Connect changed, the navigation and information architecture continued to adapt.
NOVEMBER 2024
Accessible colour palette
The navigation was updated to use the new accessible colour system developed by the design team.
JANUARY 2025
New Dashboard
The new Dashboard made services, messages and tickets directly accessible, so the Dashboard mega menu was no longer needed. We removed it and simplified the top-level navigation.
MARCH 2026
Breakpoints simplified
The existing top-level navigation had accumulated five different responsive breakpoints. These were consolidated into two breakpoints — small, medium and large.
5
→
2
5 breakpoints!
JUNE 2026
The hierarchy shifted again
Testing and stakeholder feedback showed that people consistently expected Marketplace to only contain products. We renamed the broader discovery area Ecosystem, used the Marketplace label for the product catalogue and moved Community into Ecosystem.
JULY 2026
Search promised too much
Searching from the top navigation implied users could search globally across the platform. Rather than set the wrong expectation, we simplified it to a button that took users to the existing Search experience.
AUGUST 2026
Breakpoints again?
Simplifying search freed up space in the top navigation. That gave us an opportunity to revisit the responsive behaviour once more — and reduce the navigation to a single breakpoint.
And it worked!
AUGUST 2026
One of many compromises
The new navigation was designed to be 80px high. During implementation, many existing pages still used the 65px header, so we adapted the design to work at the existing height rather than forcing a much wider product change.
80px
DESIGNED
→
65px
SHIPPED
From this...
NAVIGATION · JULY 2023
Menu items couldn’t be reached
...to this.
GLOBAL NAVIGATION IN PRODUCTION · SEPTEMBER 2026
The goal wasn’t to design navigation that would never change.
It was to design navigation that could scale.
Over the past three years, the product, its structure and its constraints kept changing. The navigation changed with them — without needing to be fundamentally redesigned.
BUILT TO ADAPT
The structure evolved alongside the product without requiring another fundamental rethink.
A COHERENT IA
Navigation, breadcrumbs, URLs and page titles now reinforce the same structure.
SIMPLER RESPONSIVE BEHAVIOUR
Five navigation breakpoints were reduced to a single breakpoint.
DESIGNED FOR DIFFERENT USERS
The same navigation system works across roles and permission states.
WHAT I LEARNED
Some of the earliest ideas disappeared entirely. Others changed as the product, constraints and our understanding of the problem changed. The strongest solution wasn't the first one — it was the one we kept questioning.
Demelza Sutherland
Brisbane, Australia
© 2026
Demelza Sutherland
Work
ABOUT
Console Connect · Navigation & Information Architecture · 2023–2026
Designing navigation for an evolving platform.
Console Connect had grown beyond its navigation and information architecture. Over three years, I helped reshape that structure into a more scalable, accessible system — while the platform continued to grow and change.
MULTIPLE PRODUCT SHIFTS · ONE EVOLVING NAVIGATION SYSTEM
At a glance...
THE CHALLENGE
Redesign navigation for a growing platform whose existing structure could no longer accommodate the product — while the product itself continued to evolve.
THE WORK
Information architecture, navigation design, usability testing and iteration, while simplifying a complex experience across products, permissions and screen sizes.
MY ROLE
Led the information architecture and design through multiple iterations, working with product, engineering and stakeholders to resolve constraints and validate the experience.
Final navigation in production
CONSOLE CONNECT · 2026
We had run out of room.
The sidebar navigation couldn’t keep up with the expanding platform. On some viewports, navigation extended beyond the screen, leaving some destinations inaccessible.
27 categories —
no clear hierarchy.
Marketplace products were organised into one long, flat list — mixing technologies, infrastructure, provider types and service models at the same level.
AS-IS PRODUCT CATEGORIES
AI
Analytics
AR/VR
Blockchain
Carriers
Cloud service providers
Compute
CRM
Databases
Data centres
Enterprise
Internet Exchanges
IoT
Machine learning
Media services
Mobile
Security
Storage
Video conferencing
Workload management
XaaS
UCaaS
DNS
DDoS-as-a-Service
IX-as-a-Service
NaaS
Saas
Reconstructed from original product taxonomy
And the menu wasn’t the only thing struggling to scale...
I looked for patterns across established marketplaces...
I compared how established cloud and technology marketplaces organised similar products, looking for common taxonomy patterns.
GOOGLE CLOUD
AWS MARKETPLACE
IBM CLOUD
AZURE
ALIBABA CLOUD
DIGITAL OCEAN
AI and Machine Learning
Machine Learning
AI / Machine Learning
AI + Machine Learning
AI & Machine Learning
Business Apps· Blogs and Forums· Chat· eCommerce· eLearning· Email
Compute
Business Applications: · Blockchain· eCommerce· eLearning
Enterprise Applications· Blockchain
Compute
Enterprise Services & Cloud Communication
Kubernetes
Containers
Data Products
Compute
Containers
Computing
Analytics
Data Analytics
Infrastructure Software
Containers
Analytics
Container
Databases
Databases
IOT
Analytics
Databases
Analytics Computing
Data Science
Developer Tools
DevOps
Databases
Developer tools
Database
Developer Tools
Healthcare & Life Sciences
Developer Tools
Hybrid + multicloud
Developer Tools
Media & Gaming
Hybrid & Multicloud
Converged Infrastructure
Internet of Things
Media Services
Network Tools
Competitive marketplace analysis · excerpt
... and we implemented a simpler structure.
MOST COMMON CATEGORIES
AI & Machine Learning
Business Applications
Compute
Containers
Analytics
Databases
Developer Tools
Internet of Things
Media
Migration
Networking
DevOps
Security
Storage
I used the recurring categories as a starting point, then adapted them to separate Console Connect’s network services from the broader third-part Marketplace product catalogue.
CONSOLE CONNECT NETWORK ACCESS
Data Centre Port
Edge Port
Edge SIM
Layer 3 (CloudRouter)
MARKETPLACE PRODUCT FAMILIES
Analytics
Business applications
Colocation
Compute
Containers
Databases
DevOps
Media and gaming
Networking
Security
Storage
CONSOLE CONNECT CONNECTIVITY
Layer 1 (Transmission)
Layer 2 (Point-to-Point)
Layer 3 (CloudRouter Site)
Internet On-Demand
These patterns helped shape
the new taxonomy
Meanwhile, the product itself was changing.
Console Connect originally included a community experience called MeetingPlace. As the platform evolved, the focus shifted toward product discovery and community features were progressively retired.
MeetingPlace became Marketplace...
MEETINGPLACE
Featured
Data Centres
Categories
Companies
People
Articles
Activity
Community
Training
NEED ASSISTANCE?
Visit the Help Centre
Contact us
Chat with support
Ask the community
Communityfeaturesgraduallyretired
Supportmoved to a dedicatedmenu
{
{
but not everything came with it.
MARKETPLACE
Products
NEW
Data Centres
Companies
People
Partner Offers
NEW
“Anything to do with browsing and purchasing of any kind, I’m going to go to that Marketplace.”
ACCOUNTS PROJECT MANAGER · MODERATED USABILITY STUDY
My first answer wasn't the right one.
People... twice?Moving awayfrom social
Why are Activity Feed & Articles part of Network?
So many help contact options
Where does Services end and Marketplace begin?
My first attempt at revising the global information architecture further exposed how much historical product structure we'd carried forward. It didn’t solve everything, but it helped us start asking the right questions.
From an early concept to a working system.
As the concept developed, the problem shifted from designing a mega menu to designing a navigation system that could accommodate different content, states and contexts.
![dashboard background image]](/_assets/v11/9caed5da2c928e9d640b32a23bf3bb4c22eeb0b8.svg)
Early mega menu concept
By Design Lead
Now things were getting interesting...
Ideas began to converge.
The information architecture evolved into our first interactive prototype. It brought the new structure, patterns and product groupings together into a single experience for the first time.
Interactive prototype
October 2023
Now for the reality check.
Our UX researcher ran moderated usability sessions covering 21 common tasks across the new Dashboard, Marketplace, Solutions, Community and Help mega menus.
21
tasks
7
participants
45
min sessions
NO
TASK
CORRECT PATH
PERFORMANCE
15
Find the access ports you control
Dashboard → Ports
16
Find a solution for logistics tracking
Solutions → By use case → Logistics tracking
02
Find all your purchased Console Connect services
Dashboard
03
Get an estimate for a Console Connect service
Solutions → Pricing Dashboard → Pricing
19
How would you find out what other companies are on Console Connect?
Community → Companies
Moderated usability testing October 2023 · excerpt
Complete success
Indirect success
Minor issue
Failure
Some things worked.Some definitely didn’t.
The first round of testing validated much of the emerging structure, but also exposed where our assumptions didn’t match our users’ expectations.
WHAT WORKED
The Dashboard made sense.
Participants consistently looked to the Dashboard for the services they owned. This validated the role of the Dashboard for managing existing services.
“Everything that I have, or have access to, would be in the Dashboard.”
WHAT WORKED
‘Solutions’ meant services.
Participants understood Solutions as a place to explore Console Connect services, particularly for a new or specific use case.
“For services, I would go to Solutions.”
WHERE WE NEED TO IMPROVE
Some content didn’t have a clear home.
Help, learning content, company discovery and pricing were less predictable. There was overlap between Marketplace, Community and Help.
“I wasn’t sure if it was in Marketplace or Solutions.”
KEY TAKEAWAY
The foundation was strong. Now we need to refine it.
The research gave us confidence in the core structure and naming, while highlighting key areas to clarify and simplify. These insights directly shaped the next iteration of navigation.
On the right track...but still lots to improve
The structure worked. But the details needed refinement.
The overall structure had tested well, but some important destinations buried in the mega menus and others weren’t where participants expected them to be. The next iteration focused on improving hierarchy, findability and reducing competition in the navigation.
A cleaner structurewas emerging
02
01
03
04
05
01
VISUAL REFINEMENT
We simplified the styling, the white with the gradient brand logo treatment created a clean, distinctive header.
02
PRICING ELEVATED
The Pricing Calculator moved back to the primary navigation bar after testing showed it was too important to bury.
03
RESPONSIVE SEARCH
Search expands into available space (or below the navigation when space is limited) when hovered or clicked.
04
UTILITIES SIMPLIFIED
Messages and alerts were consolidated into a single Notifications trigger.
05
ACCOUNT MENU
A new Account mega menu brought together personal and company settings, orders and billing.
The next prototype was a big leap forward.
Better account management
We introduced a new Account mega menu, bringing together Personal and Company settings, Orders & Billing. Orders moved out of Dashboard, creating a clearer distinction between managing services and managing the account.
Supporting the journey
Dashboard and Account mega menus introduced guidance for new customers — from creating or joining a company and setting up billing, to understanding which services to explore first.
Simplifying support
Support was reorganised around how people actually seek help, separating self-service options from assisted support.
Interactive prototype
November 2023
One system, whatever the viewport.
As space reduces, the same navigation components reorganise — from a large mega menu to a compact menu and eventually a navigation drawer. The underlying system remains the same.
Large desktop
Full mega menu with four columns
Small laptop
For larger mega menus navigational components reorganise to fit constrained viewport widths.
Tablet
Top navigation collapses into a drawer, while the same menu components are preserved.
Mobile · Navigation closed
Primary navigation collapses while key utilities remain accessible.
Mobile · Navigation open
Top level destination become accordions in a single column drawer.
Mobile · Navigation section expanded
The same menu components used in the mega menus stack vertically within the drawer.
One navigation system needed to work for many roles.
Navigation couldn't be designed as a single fixed experience. Roles and privileges changed which destinations, menus and actions were available, so I mapped the major permission states and designed the navigation to adapt while retaining a consistent structure.
Marketplace
Community
Pricing
COMPANY MEMBER
Dashboard
Solutions
Marketplace
Community
Pricing
NETWORK VIEWER / ADMIN
Dashboard
Solutions
Marketplace
Community
Pricing
PartnerConnect
PARTNER / RESELLER
Dashboard
Home to all of your services, tools and information
Go to your dashboard
CORE SERVICES
Services ordered by your company will appear here or on your Dashboard.
MARKETPLACE services
Explore products and services from our extensive digital partner ecosystem on the Marketplace.
Button
DASHBOARD MEGA MENU · NETWORK VIEWER
Dashboard
Home to all of your services, tools and information
Go to your dashboard
Core services
Ports
L2 Connections
Internet On-Demand
MARKETPLACE SERVICES
Colocation
Compute
DASHBOARD MEGA MENU · NETWORK ADMIN
The design worked in Figma. Now it had to survive engineering.
Refinement was collaborative. Product, design and engineering broke the navigation apart, challenged assumptions and worked through how it would behave within the existing platform.
COMPONENT IDENTIFICATION · NAVIGATION WORKSHOP DECEMBER 2024
“Massive appreciation to Brent and Demelza for the effective refinement sessions. The pieces are really starting to come together now.”
ENGINEER · TEAM RETROSPECTIVE
The IA didn’t stop at the navigation.
Changing the navigation exposed inconsistencies deeper in the product. URLs, breadcrumbs and page titles had drifted out of alignment over time, so I worked through them as part of the same information architecture.
NAVIGATION
→
BREADCRUMBS
→
URLS
→
PAGE TITLES
ACCESSIBILITY
Page titles were also refactored so every page had a unique title, rather than the duplicate titles that existed previously.
The product kept evolving. So did the navigation.
The navigation was not designed once and left untouched. As Console Connect changed, the navigation and information architecture continued to adapt.
NOVEMBER 2024
Accessible colour palette
The navigation was updated to use the new accessible colour system developed by the design team.
JANUARY 2025
New Dashboard
The new Dashboard made services, messages and tickets directly accessible, so the Dashboard mega menu was no longer needed. We removed it and simplified the top-level navigation.
MARCH 2026
Breakpoints simplified
The existing top-level navigation had accumulated five different responsive breakpoints. These were consolidated into two breakpoints — small, medium and large.
5
→
2
5 breakpoints!
JUNE 2026
The hierarchy shifted again
Testing and stakeholder feedback showed that people consistently expected Marketplace to only contain products. We renamed the broader discovery area Ecosystem, used the Marketplace label for the product catalogue and moved Community into Ecosystem.
JULY 2026
Search promised too much
Searching from the top navigation implied users could search globally across the platform. Rather than set the wrong expectation, we simplified it to a button that took users to the existing Search experience.
AUGUST 2026
Breakpoints again?
Simplifying search freed up space in the top navigation. That gave us an opportunity to revisit the responsive behaviour once more — and reduce the navigation to a single breakpoint.
And it worked!
AUGUST 2026
One of many compromises
The new navigation was designed to be 80px high. During implementation, many existing pages still used the 65px header, so we adapted the design to work at the existing height rather than forcing a much wider product change.
80px
DESIGNED
→
65px
SHIPPED
From this...
NAVIGATION · JULY 2023
Menu items couldn’t be reached
...to this.
GLOBAL NAVIGATION IN PRODUCTION · SEPTEMBER 2026
The goal wasn’t to design navigation that would never change.
It was to design navigation that could scale.
Over the past three years, the product, its structure and its constraints kept changing. The navigation changed with them — without needing to be fundamentally redesigned.
BUILT TO ADAPT
The structure evolved alongside the product without requiring another fundamental rethink.
A COHERENT IA
Navigation, breadcrumbs, URLs and page titles now reinforce the same structure.
SIMPLER RESPONSIVE BEHAVIOUR
Five navigation breakpoints were reduced to a single breakpoint.
DESIGNED FOR DIFFERENT USERS
The same navigation system works across roles and permission states.
WHAT I LEARNED
Some of the earliest ideas disappeared entirely. Others changed as the product, constraints and our understanding of the problem changed. The strongest solution wasn't the first one — it was the one we kept questioning.
Demelza Sutherland
Brisbane, Australia
© 2026