What is the admin console?

We designed a scalable admin console that lets enterprise clients manage users, content, and permissions in one secure place inside the Here Enterprise Browser.

The problem - no unified platform

Before this project, there was no admin console in place. Admins had to rely on a mix of legacy tools, back-and-forth messages, and manual engineering work just to manage users and content. This caused frequent confusion, delays across teams, and high support and maintenance costs.

What we built - an admin console

As the lead designer, I partnered closely with product and engineering to design and launch the first admin console from the ground up. We created one clear and secure place where administrators could create users, assign roles, manage content, and adjust settings. The experience was built to be fast, reliable, and easy to understand, even for non-technical users.

Why it mattered - usability & business perspectives

The new console made everyday tasks much smoother for admins and reduced the need for engineering help. On the business side, it added real value to the browser product by giving clients more control and flexibility. This helped strengthen long-term client relationships and made the product easier to sell to new enterprise customers.

3 main admin personas

When we kicked off the project, we were under tight time pressure. There was strong urgency from the business to move fast and show progress to retain the client. Ideally, we would’ve done more in-depth discovery upfront, but given the deadline, we leaned heavily on how the client described their existing system—where each piece of content defined its own permissions, and roles were built from those.

2 key tasks

Despite their differences, admins shared two essential tasks:
- Grant users access to company content
- Define and manage content permissions

We mapped out workflows based on the client’s existing experience

The initial logic followed a content-to-group model:
- To give users access to content, both the users and the content had to be assigned to the same group.
- To achieve different content authorization, roles containing different permissions will be assigned to users

Content Access via Groups

To grant different users access to content, the content needs to be assigned to a group.

Unique Permission Each Content & Role Creation

Permissions are defined uniquely inside of each content, and roles are created based on those unique permissions.

Role-Based Permission Distribution

By assigning roles to different users, users in the same group can obtain different levels of permissions.

User Story

User Flow

First Round MVP & Flow

We mapped out workflows based on the client’s existing experience

We tested this first version with 6 admins from internal and client teams to see how well it worked in practice.
Feedback quickly revealed two major issues:

Finding 1:  Redundancy and Complexity at Scale

Admins have to frequently redefine the same types of permissions.

Finding 2: Misleading Control

The model assumed the system could enforce permissions for all apps, but that does not work for external apps like Salesforce or FactSet.

These insights made it clear: our current model was too complex to scale and too rigid for real-world use. We needed a new approach. So we made a bold shift:

Permissions are now defined universally, not per content

This allows permissions to be defined once and recycled, eliminating repetitive work.

Roles are built from standardized permission sets

Content links to roles and groups without duplication. Admins can now create roles once and assign them via a flexible dual list UI — no need to reinvent logic for every piece of content.

• Simplified user creation and permission workflows
• Fewer clicks, less confusion
• Led to a successful contract renewal and 3 new enterprise contracts
• The admin console is now live on 2,200+ desktops, with plans to scale to 25,000 users