Enterprise Software Licensing UX/UI
Designing Cisco's Smart Licensing experience as a coherent product system. This case study focuses on clarity, trust, and decision support inside a high-stakes enterprise environment.
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Case Study
Smart Licensing, designed as a system.
Enterprise software licensing is inherently complex. This work transformed Cisco's Smart Licensing experience into a clear, navigable system that supports understanding, compliance, and confident decision-making across customers, partners, and internal teams.
Context
Where complexity meets consequence.
Licensing sits at the intersection of technology, compliance, and revenue. Users are not exploring. They are trying to understand ownership, entitlement, and next steps. Small UX gaps here create outsized friction, support burden, and business risk.
Design Intent
Clarity over complexity.
The goal was structural clarity, not surface polish. Licensing concepts needed to become legible. Navigation, content, and interaction patterns were designed to behave like a product, not documentation.
What Changed
Information Architecture
Licensing content was reorganized around user intent rather than internal structures, enabling faster orientation and clearer understanding.
Navigation & Flow
Navigation paths were simplified to reduce cognitive load and support decision-making at high-impact moments.
Cross-Role Support
The system scaled across customers, partners, and internal teams without fragmenting the experience.
UX Approach
Discovery
Stakeholder interviews and journey mapping uncovered friction across licensing understanding and usage.
System Architecture
Defined scalable UX patterns and content structures designed to survive enterprise complexity.
UI & Production
Delivered production-ready UI aligned with Cisco standards while improving usability and clarity.
Continuous Improvement
Designed feedback intake mechanisms to convert issues into future enhancements.
Brand System
Smart Licensing as a recognizable initiative.
Alongside UX work, a visual identity was created for Smart Licensing. The logo and brand system reinforced structure, clarity, and trust across products and touchpoints.
Selected Screens
System Entry Point
Introduces the product through clear role-based paths that help users quickly orient and understand where to begin.
View Selected ScreenshotGuided Navigation
Information architecture and navigation patterns reduce decision friction while supporting complex licensing workflows.
View Selected ScreenshotLearning & Enablement
Educational content is structured to build confidence and support onboarding across customers, partners, and internal teams.
View Selected ScreenshotDisclosure
This case study highlights decisions, not documentation.
In regulated environments, specific flows and data are intentionally abstracted. Full walkthroughs and unredacted examples are available to discuss live.
