IBM Spectrum LSF Application Center — workload proposal design.
Designed Carbon-compliant workload proposal experiences for the IBM Spectrum LSF Application Center — standardising data tables, global filter controls, header controls, and five-state job status indicators for HPC engineers managing complex compute job queues.
How it started
IBM Spectrum LSF Application Center is the enterprise interface for HPC workload management — used by engineers and scientists to submit, monitor, and manage compute jobs across clusters. The platform is deeply functional, but the UI had accumulated inconsistencies: non-standard filter bars, bespoke data table implementations diverging from IBM Carbon, and missing control patterns creating friction for power users.
In February 2025, Kiran B and I were engaged to design a workload proposal — aligning the Workloads section to IBM Carbon Design System standards and introducing missing reusable patterns the product team could adopt.
What was wrong
- Custom Data Table — Bespoke implementation diverged from IBM Carbon Data Table. Column widths, header controls, row actions — all non-standard.
- Filter bars — Inline filter bars used a custom pattern not aligned to Carbon Filtering guidelines.
- Global Controls absent — "Unapply filters" and "Reset filters" were missing — no recovery path for filter states.
- Inconsistent state indicators — Job states (Running, Suspended, Pending, Exited, Done) mixed badge styles, text labels, and colour coding without a shared system.
What was designed
