Context

In cBridge, an administrator manages thousands of trading instruments — symbols. When a single setting needs to be changed across dozens of them at once, doing it without bulk editing turns into a lengthy routine with a high risk of error.

Goal

Design a bulk symbol editing interface: how a user enters selection mode, picks the required rows, and applies changes to all of them at once.

Competitor Analysis

I analyzed how bulk selection is implemented in popular products — email clients, file managers, databases, and content management tools. I used Claude to structure patterns and insights. Across seven products, I identified four universal patterns: a checkbox column, a contextual toolbar on selection, a selected-rows counter, and row highlight. For cBridge, the key distinction was that hover-triggered checkboxes — common in B2C — don't work for operators. They need a permanently visible selection column and mandatory confirmation before destructive actions, since deleting a routing rule directly affects production traffic.

Competitor Analysis

Based on bulk editing patterns, I explored several interaction mechanics in the context of cBridge.

User Testing

Before finalizing the solution, we ran usability tests with colleagues from other teams. I defined three hypotheses:

If a user clicks the Multi Edit button, they will understand without any prompts that the mode is active — at least 4 out of 5 participants will continue selecting rows within 30 seconds, without questions or pauses.
If a user sees a table with checkboxes in Multi Edit mode, they will figure out how to select multiple rows on their own — at least 4 out of 5 participants will do this without errors on the first attempt.
If a user has selected multiple rows and opened the Bulk Edit sidebar, they understand which symbols they are editing — at least 4 out of 5 participants will be able to name the selected symbols without looking at the table.
Task for participants

Findings

Most participants found the Multi Edit toggle, but 4 out of 7 were confused in the first few seconds — they expected a button or a row click. No critical blockers, but the entry point needs refinement.
All participants without exception selected rows via checkboxes independently and on the first try. The pattern proved intuitive.
Most understood they were editing the selected symbols, but 3 out of 7 couldn't confidently name them without looking at the table — the sidebar was missing a list of selected items.

Final UI after all iterations

The user enables Multi Edit mode, selects the required symbols, and applies changes to all of them at once — no repeated actions per row

The team: Product Manager, Business Analyst,
Frontend Developer and Designer