Assets in Search

Product UX/UI Design Lead

Company: Seerist
In Collaboration with: Product Manager, UX Manager, Development Team

Context

The "Assets" feature from Seerist Core (Control Risks) needed to be integrated into the Seerist platform’s Search. Originally developed without adherence to UX Heuristics, the platform resulted in user confusion and frustration, particularly within the Search experience. With a tight deadline, I collaborated closely with the Product Manager to design wireframes and prototypes that ensured design consistency, improved usability, and enabled seamless integration of new features, aligning with business objectives and technical constraints.

Challenges

Managing Product Input on Design Decisions

Challenge: The product team frequently presented design requirements that conflicted with established UX heuristics and user experience best practices.

Solution: I developed design solutions that balanced the product team’s requirements with a user-centered approach. I facilitated open communication and provided guidance on UX principles and heuristics to inform design decisions, ensuring alignment.

Project Requirements from Product Manager

Introduction and Scope

The Search feature in Seerist offers the user the ability to specify their geography of search using several methods, including the selection of ‘Places’. This allows users to return results in Search based on the locations of their Places in Seerist.

In this story we will expand the geography selection options and enable users to return results in Search based on the locations of their Assets. We will add ‘Assets’ as a method of Search geography selection. Assets will be accessible within Search alongside Places, until we have completed the migration of Places into Assets and we are able to fully deprecate Places.

The selection of Assets will function the same as the selection of Places within Search, with users able to select either overall categories (Asset Types) containing multiple Assets, or select individual Assets.

The limit of selecting 50 Assets maximum will still apply, as it does with Places.

Requirements

Add ‘Assets’ as option in Search geography selection
Group ‘Places’ and ‘Assets’ within a ‘My Locations’ tab in the geography selection options within Search
When user selects ‘Assets’ a searchbar should display
User can use searchbar to search for Asset Titles
- Selecting Assets should then add them to the Search
Maximum 50 Assets can be selected concurrently
Assets and Places are mutually exclusive and cannot be selected simultaneously
Assets must power all the same functions and capabilities as Places does, including:
- Saved Searches
- Alerts
Asset deletion or removal will be addressed in later iterations

User Story

As a: Risk Analyst using Search in Seerist

I want to: specify geography of Search using my Assets

So that I can: identify events, insights and threats in relation to the location of my Assets, gaining hypercontextualised information about my organisation’s risk and threat exposure

User Personas

To address low usability issues in the Seerist platform, I developed detailed User Personas for its two primary user types - Analyst and Security Manager (Federal) - based on insights from user testing, feedback, and stakeholder input. These personas were used to inform design solutions, ensuring the user experience was tailored to meet the distinct needs of each group.

UX Heuristic Evaluation

Screenshots from Existing Seerist Platform

**Design Inconsistency: Widget Navigation**
There are various styles of in-widget navigation beside this tab design seen here within Search widget.

**Design Inconsistency: Widget Navigation**
There are various styles of in-widget navigation: beside tab design within Search, there is a horizontal scroll design, as seen here in the left side Location widget on the Latest screen.

**Design Requirement**
The Product and Development team wanted the design for Assets in Search to be the same design as currently in the Seerist product for My Places in Search.

First Iteration (Option One)

Wireframes that adhere to Product’s Design Requirement

When a user selects an Asset Type’s dropdown, a list of all Assets in this Asset Type are shown.

A user is able to select/deselect by Asset Type or by a specific Asset.

First Iteration (Alternate Options)

Wireframes that adhere both to Product’s Requirement and UX Heuristics

I provided two alternate design options for in-widget navigation that would provide higher usability by adhering to UX standards.

**Alternate Widget Navigation Design One**
An alternate solution that provided higher usability to users is a dropdown selector for Location Types, which aligns with UX standards. This option would also provide less UI overwhelm, which was a common theme from user feedback. This solution would appease Product and Development teams Requirements.

**Alternate Widget Navigation Design Two**
This horizontal scroll option provided design consistency with the in-widget navigation found across the platform, but it meant hiding items off view and forcing the user to scroll to find them. Since users have provided feedback that they can not find features in the product, this option wouldn’t provide the highest usability. This solution would appease Product and Development teams Requirements.

Feedback from Head of User Experience

The Head of User Experience wanted to move away horizontal scroll navigation in platform.

Feedback from Development Team

Feedback was provided by the Development team that the design provided above to organize Assets into Asset Types would take longer in development.

Response from Product Manager

Based on the Development Team’s feedback, the Product Manager asked that I provide an interim design eliminating the Asset Types that would be faster for development to implement into the platform as the Minimum Viable Product.