Internship · Summer 2025
Enhancing usability and accessibility across Brighterion's AI-powered Risk Decisioning platform at Mastercard
Timeline
May – Aug 2025
(12-week Internship)
Team
2 Principal PM
2 Lead Designers
Role
Product Design Intern
Tools
Figma
Overview
Every day, billions of transactions are made around the world, each carrying potential risk. Mastercard Brighterion's Risk Decisioning platform powers the AI behind these decisions, helping financial institutions and merchants detect fraud in real time.
In Summer 2025, I joined the Mastercard Brighterion design team to improve how analysts interact with this growing AI system. I focused on usability and accessibility across multiple products, leading work on sort and filter workflows and establishing more inclusive design patterns to help customers triage risk faster and make more confident, data-driven decisions.
Reflections
Accessibility Audit & Redesign
I led a manual accessibility audit across five Brighterion products, identifying critical friction points in how fraud analysts navigate dense transaction tables and controls. These findings informed a set of accessibility improvements and reusable design patterns, helping the platform better support users working in high-stakes, time sensitive fraud detection workflows.
Sort & Filter Workflow Redesign
I redesigned core sort and filter patterns used across transaction views, starting with interaction polish (modal height consistency, dropdown behavior) and expanding into how analysts prioritize and surface high-risk activity across fields. This work redefined a foundational workflow used across products, making it easier for customers to quickly identify what matters and take action with confidence.
Community & Culture Building
Beyond product work, I directed and edited Mastercard's “Day in My Life” intern video, co-planned workshops with the Women Leadership Network, and helped organize executive fireside chats for interns. This reinforced how design and storytelling shape internal culture, visibility, and connection—not just user-facing products.
This work is confidential. Please send me an email if you would like to learn more about my process!
Looking Back
Over the summer, I grew as a systems thinker, learned to collaborate deeply with product and engineering partners, and took ownership of problems from discovery through delivery. One highlight was presenting my redesigned foundational workflows to our VP, a moment that showed me how intern work can meaningfully shape core product experiences.
I'm incredibly grateful to my team at Mastercard Brighterion, and to the interns and leaders I met across Canada and the U.S. Thank you for making this summer meaningful, energizing, and unforgettable.
Feedback
Kind words from my manager
Lead UX Designer, Mastercard
“Sheffield worked with me and my team over the summer as a UX Design intern contributing to key initiatives and projects. Since we're a fast-paced team, it can often be challenging for interns to get up to speed. Sheffield did an amazing job learning the product and processes and started contributing quickly.
While with us, Sheffield worked on multiple key projects that directly helped the team deliver on customer needs. She is a strong communicator, is curious, a great team member, and implements feedback effectively. In addition to her technical contributions, Sheffield had big impact on team and company culture. She got involved with and lead intern initiatives and organized events for the Women's Leadership Network.
I highly recommend Sheffield for any future UX Design opportunities and am confident she'll be a valuable team member anywhere she works.”
