We engaged the client stakeholders and select users in a workshop to understand what they liked about the legacy vault functionality, what could be improved, and what we wanted to add from industry leading competitor products. Document vault is essentially Google Drive for the cities documents — users needed to upload files, add metadata, manage folder structure, share files with other organizations, archive unneeded files (but not delete), view documents sent to them, search for specific documents by a variety of criteria, and most importantly link these documents to various procurements, proposals, and RFPs.

We needed to establish a design system that was scalable and could include different frameworks and platforms— specifically Ivalua and Liferay to start. We audited the existing components and guidelines and stood up a core design system that could be used for all digital products. This included the Document Vault which is built using the framework Liferay which uses the established design system Lexicon (based off of clay and bootstrap). To optimize build we used the base Lexicon design system and customized it to our core design system, documenting any custom changes to the out-of-the-box functionality or UI to speed up development and ensure a consistent look and feel, including any net new components. MOCS also had established branding guidelines but we needed to make them more robust to align to the needs of this and future modules. This included expanding the color palette and defining logomarks for all the modules under this unified platform umbrella.

Over eight weeks we had twice weekly design sessions with the client to iterate on the functional design and identify edge cases so we could align on the final design for build. In addition to the design system we delivered dev ready mockups for all features and edge cases as well as documentation outlining the function for every interaction. The added value of human centered design improved the final product by making the end users actions transparent, accessible, and usable — the three experience pillars we identified during phase 1.

In addition to the vault functionality we created the primary dashboard where users could engage with all current and future applications within this SAAS product. We also explored enhancements using generative AI that could improve speed to market and reduce help desk queries.

My role: I was the design lead for the unified platform and document vault, responsible for unifying the visual style and facilitating client working sessions to align on final deliverables. I managed the team of 5 designers tasked with establishing the design system, mocking up, prototyping, demoing, and documenting the functionality. I helped solve user driven problems that arose through build and testing, always advocating for the needs of the end users.

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Creative Direction: David Kim

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UX Design: Mel Liu, Rachel Covert, Bridget Wu, Kate Clawson

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Tech Architect: Eklovya Mani

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Product: Kevin Lee