Group 1001’s ONYX ERP Project
ONYX Design and Launch
Information Architecture | Product Design | Branding | Personas | App Development
“As part of a lean three-person startup team within Group 1001, I helped launch ONYX — a cloud-native annuity administration platform — taking it from concept to production in just one year.”
Overview
ONYX is Group 1001’s cloud-native annuity administration platform built to modernize legacy systems and unify critical business workflows. The platform supports customer service agents, operations, contract management, pricing and trading, agent management, licensing and appointments, and client-facing views.
As part of a lean three-person founding team, we built the ERP from the ground up within one year — transforming fragmented processes into a scalable enterprise platform in a regulated insurance environment – that replaced outdated tools and reduced vendor dependency.
Problem
Before ONYX, critical workflows were spread across legacy systems and third-party tools, creating fragmented experiences, limited operational visibility, and heavy vendor dependency. Processes were manual, data capture was inconsistent, and scaling within a regulated environment was difficult.
Many requests surfaced as UI fixes, but the root issues were systemic — involving workflow design, data structure, and cross-team alignment. The challenge was not simply improving interfaces, but architecting cohesive, multi-persona workflows across the platform.
KPI
- Reduction in third-party vendor dependency
- Consolidation of legacy tools into a unified ERP
- Improved operational efficiency across departments
- Increased delivery predictability within SDLC
- Improved accessibility compliance standards
- Greater cross-team alignment and workflow clarity
Team
Product Designer | Front End Developer | Backend Developer
Time
1 Year to launch and ongoing improvements
My Role
Product Design | Front End Developement
Requirement
End-to-end workflow design, Mockup and prototype presentation, Interaction Design, Front End Development
My Role
- Defining end-to-end workflows across multiple personas
- Partnering with backend and frontend engineers to translate system logic into usable interfaces
- Validating problem statements directly with operations teams
- Creating interactive prototypes to communicate flow and reduce ambiguity
Strategy, Product Impact and Team Impact
Strategy
- Reframed feature requests into root-cause workflow problems through direct user collaboration
- Designed system-level, multi-persona workflows across modules
- Consolidated legacy and third-party tools into unified platform experiences
- Introduced flow-based prototypes to improve clarity and reduce ambiguity
- Increased design visibility and alignment within SDLC
Product Impact
- Unified multiple business-critical functions into a single scalable ERP
- Reduced reliance on third-party tools by consolidating workflows internally
- Improved usability across operational teams
- Strengthened accessibility compliance
- Expanded and standardized the design system to improve engineering efficiency and UI consistency across two brands
Team Impact
- Mentored young designers
- Presented Design team vision and achievements in all hands
- Partnered closely and built alliances with engineering, product, and marketing
User Personas
We conducted a study to better understand the age group, technology savy and traits of different users of ONYX. We created persona documents. We shared user journeys with the stakeholders showing the user personas and then explaining the differences.
Sarah Davis
CSA | 28 Years | Desktop User
Mathew Smith
Pricing and Trading | 35 Years | Desktop
Kevin Harth
Agent | 40 Years | Desktop | Mobile
Martha Green
Client | 60 Years | Desktop
John Keller
Operations | 22 Years | Desktop User
Emily Williams
Agent Management | 32 years | Desktop
Design System
In 2021, as the business and the scale of the product grew, we needed to streamline or design and development process. We based our design systems on the Material Design system 2 as ONYX was being developed on Angular 8.
ONYX Design System – DLIC
ONYX Design System – Gainbridge
Branding and Rebranding
ONYX went through 3 brand color changes. The first one was Teal, then we moved to Brand Blue with teal as the secondary colors. After the accessibility audit the teal color was changed to green.