Erick Rico - Product Designer

Insomnia version 8.0

Insomnia 8.0 marked a major milestone in the product lifecycle, introducing key features like real-time collaboration, a redesigned navigation system to support workspaces, and a completely new web admin for improved management and scalability.

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Background

Insomnia 8.0 was one of the most significant releases in the product’s history, introducing a wide range of features aimed at enhancing collaboration, streamlining workflows, and supporting new file types like mocks and tests. Over the course of a year, I worked closely with Kong’s CTO on this monumental release, contributing to a complete redesign of the navigation system to better accommodate the needs of diverse organizations. Beyond features, I also focused on enhancing the Web Admin interface, improving team management, and enabling enterprise SSO and RBAC capabilities. This release created great momentum, increasing active users and positioning Insomnia as a first-class product within Kong.

Key Contributions

Designed and implemented real-time collaboration tools, enabling seamless teamwork on API projects, even on the Free plan.

Enhanced the Web Admin interface, improving workflows for team and access management, with a focus on enterprise SSO and RBAC features.

Redesigned the navigation system, ensuring scalability and usability for organizations of all sizes.

Played a pivotal role in increasing active user adoption, making Insomnia a critical part of Kong’s ecosystem.

Dashboard

Design

Debug

Test

Web Admin

Setting members

Setting EE SSO

OCTO

2023 - Present

Kong

I've been part of the OCTO team at Kong, working directly with the CTO and a small team of developers for the past three years. While my primary focus has been on Insomnia, I've also contributed to developing proof-of-concept projects across various stages of development. Some of these concepts have already been released, others are in active development, and a few have served as exploratory initiatives to test viability and timing for future opportunities. Due to the nature of my work, I'm unable to share detailed workflows or designs.

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Insomnia 8.0

2023

Kong

Insomnia 8.0 was one of our most significant releases, introducing collaboration, streamlining workflows, and enabling new file types like mocks and tests. I worked on this major update for over a year alongside Kong's CTO, driving momentum that increased active users and solidified Insomnia as a first-class product within the organization. Following this release, I have continued to work on improvements in subsequent updates. This release was not just about adding new features and enhancing the web admin—it also included a complete redesign of the navigation system to better accommodate the needs of diverse organizations.

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