My design process, while not always linear, included these key steps at different stages of this project. More so, I worked on multiple projects overlapping with each other.
I reviewed findings from user conversations led by designers and PMs before I joined
I analyzed several information security services to evaluate their product offerings
I identified opportunity areas and prioritized them from a design and business standpoint
I rapidly prototyped with wireframes, mid-fi screens, and high-fi prototypes to test ideas
I led several rounds of reviews with internal stakeholders to evaluate my ideas
I supported the developers in resolving bugs and reviewing fit & finish before deployment
My design process, while not always linear, included these key steps at different stages of this project. More so, I worked on multiple projects overlapping with each other.
The security configuration experience breaks at scale because it takes too long to setup a policy.
Security configuration is rigid, forcing users to setup their data according to how Flow works.
Flow’s security framework doesn’t allow for multiple entities to be secured in one policy.
Users don’t have a one-glance view of their security posture, making it difficult to troubeshoot.
Policies have poor lifecycle management, leading to redundant policies and poor maintenance.
In an attempt to address these pain points, I had the unique opportunity to redefine what a security policy would look like in attempt to address some of the users’ concerns.
Different categories of information, from company finances to internal R&D data, had to be secured individually. For bigger companies, this meant securing information for each category separately.
This removed restrictions around the kinds of data and how many categories of data that can be secured. Users have the flexibility to setup their security without being limited by Flow.
A new security architecture meant that Flow’s primary user flows had to be updated. With their pain points in mind, I framed How Might We questions to begin ideating.
These weekly design reviews and crit sessions proved invaluable to make my designs well-rounded from all perspectives (desireability, feasibility, and business viability) while also getting a go-ahead from everyone in the team.
This is a very early stage wireframe for how users can secure data. Some of the feedback from the team:
1. There can be better use of space on the screen. The left column is going unused.
2. Showing both inbound and outbound in the same screen will take too much time to populate.
3. The table will not scale easily when multiple rows are added.
This screen continued to evolve over the next few months.
I oversaw the design and development of the new security framework and policy configuration workflows, and an all-new security posture visualization. I also designed features introducing policy lifecycle management.
The new experience brings a certain level of familiarity to IT admins who are traditionally accustomed to Excel spreadsheets.
Powerful inline bulk actions and one-click creation reduce the time to add rules.
This all-new experience brings together data access traffic across all policies and shows a one-stop map of all the user’s configuration, allowing users to monitor their security settings and spot alerts quickly.
Better version control for policies gives users the flexibility to monitor and update changes over time.
Users can also roll policies back to earlier versions in an unlikely event of a policy breaking the system.
While everyone signed off on the high-fi mocks for the designs, there were feasibility issues and edge cases that came up once the developers began to build them. Along with addressing these, I also answered questions and talked through my designs regularly.
Although an earlier version of the table had column-to-column dropdown menus, the design had to be changed since the React component library did not have such a component for tables.
At any time, I was working on multiple projects at various stages of completion simultaneously. Even as the development and QA team was busy testing the updates to Flow, I began work on the next phase of experience enhancements.
From coordinating with multiple stakeholders to defending my designs and taking accountability for my mistakes, my first stint as a user experience designer taught me many critical skills required to excel in the industry as a designer.
I had the unique opportunity to work on the redesign of a product from scratch. I had the chance to see how products are built from the ground up, the constraints I have to work with, and how I can positively influence change.
These are anonymized peer reviews I received one year into the job: