FICO Platform — Devlin Hazell

01 The Story

FICO's flagship B2B platform — trusted by 130+ Tier 1 financial institutions worldwide, and continuously evolving.

Duration

7 Years

Institutions

130+ Tier 1

Role

Sr. Manager

FICO Platform, also known as the Decision Management Platform, is FICO's flagship B2B software — an integrated platform solution that allows users to build, deploy, execute, and scale analytic-powered applications. Trusted by over 130 Tier 1 financial institutions worldwide, the platform requires continuous updates in both code and design to meet evolving business goals and technological demands.

To keep FICO Platform up to date, efficient collaboration among stakeholders, product managers, engineers, and designers is essential. Regular meetings and the use of JIRA production system facilitate clear, cross-border communication and streamlined project management.

Over the years, my role and responsibilities evolved significantly:

UI Design & Execution — Started by transforming wireframes into polished user interfaces aligned with the Horizon style guide.
Design System Evolution — Transitioned to reimagining and modernizing the product experience using the IRIS Design System.
Product Collaboration — Partnered closely with Product Managers to design features for upcoming releases, while also reviewing and providing feedback on in-progress builds.
Team Leadership & Mentorship — Led a team of designers, facilitating weekly team meetings and conducting one-on-one sessions to review sprint work and provide actionable feedback.
Agile Workflow Management — Oversaw design contributions within Agile sprints, managing stories and progress through JIRA.

“Prior to 2020, FICO's software portfolio relied on UX design guidelines that were efficient but not scalable.”

The pre-2020 design landscape exposed clear structural problems that needed to be solved:

Fragmented Design Approach — The system lacked reusable components, leading to inconsistencies across products.
Tooling Limitations — Designers primarily used Axure, which did not support component libraries or scalable design workflows.
Engineering Handoff Challenges — Engineers built interfaces directly from wireframes, requiring extensive annotations and increasing the risk of misalignment.
Role Focus (Pre-2020) — Translated wireframes into high-fidelity UI and produced detailed specifications to support engineering implementation.

02 The Process

Each phase of the platform's evolution responded to a real problem — fragmented tooling, inconsistent patterns, a rebrand that touched every product. The work was never theoretical.

Iteration 00

The baseline — a fragmented platform

Products built independently over years. Axure wireframes, static redlines, no shared component library. Engineers made visual design decisions because there was no system to reference. To address this, I introduced a component-driven approach: recreating core page elements as reusable components in Sketch and establishing Horizon UI — a component-based system aligned with existing UX guidelines.

Before

Static Axure wireframes handed off to visual design

→

After

Reusable components in Sketch, designers working in high-fidelity UI directly

Iteration 01

FY 2023–2024 — Company rebrand

The new design system aligned with FICO's Marketing team, which defined the company's global brand and visual direction. The goal was to unify product experiences under a single, consistent look and feel that reflected the refreshed brand. All product teams began planning a redesign to adopt the new brand standards, leveraging the scalable IRIS Design System to ensure consistency, efficiency, and long-term maintainability across the entire product portfolio.

Iteration 02

Before & after — the transformation

Side-by-side comparisons show the full scope of the platform's visual evolution — from fragmented, wireframe-driven interfaces to a unified, component-driven product experience.

03 The Outcome

01

Scalable Foundation

Improved design consistency and reduced rework across the platform. The component system laid the foundation that all future product work would build on.

02

Brand Alignment

All product teams unified under FICO's refreshed brand standards — a single, consistent look and feel across the entire platform portfolio.

03

Next-Gen Platform

In 2025, I contributed to future platform strategy by designing a simplified left-navigation system for the next generation of FICO Platform.

FY 2025 — Next-Generation Information Architecture

As the platform evolved and my role shifted toward team leadership, I helped envision the platform's next-generation design system and strategic direction. The product design team's goal was to build upon the existing foundation and create an all-in-one capabilities platform.

FICO Platform represents seven years of continuous design investment — from wireframe handoffs to a fully component-driven, brand-aligned product suite trusted by Tier 1 financial institutions worldwide. Every iteration was grounded in real team needs, real engineering constraints, and a commitment to long-term maintainability.

In 2025, the platform entered its next generation — built on the foundation established over the previous seven years.