CASE STUDY

UX Study

Simplifying How Users Find Documents

Document Search Page Redesign

Web App

Introduction

An outdated search system made it difficult for users to access the documents they needed. Results lacked relevance and clarity, especially for non-technical users. The redesign focused on improving usability while working within technical constraints to deliver immediate improvements and plan for future enhancements

My role

Audited the existing platform and documented key usability gaps
Benchmarked filtering and result design patterns from tools like Notion and Google Scholar
Created multiple design variations based on user feedback and feasibility reviews

Project Timeline

3 Months

Summary

This project began as a UI upgrade request but evolved into a strategic search modernization initiative.

Two enterprise healthcare clients escalated concerns and tied search performance to contract renewal discussions.

Through research, stakeholder influence, and phased execution, we reduced policy retrieval time from 3–6 minutes to under 1 minute and restored confidence in search — laying the foundation for semantic and global search evolution

Business Context

The Policy module is the most accessed surface in the platform.

01

70–90% of users are workforce consumers with 1000s of monthly document searches

02

Search reliability is critical to audit readiness and compliance. If users can’t find the right policy quickly, organizational risk increases

03

Search friction directly impacts workflow efficiency

Problem statement

The existing search experience was unintuitive and lacked transparency, making it difficult for users—especially non-technical ones—to find relevant information efficiently. Poor result relevance, unclear filtering, and limited feedback on match logic led to frustration and frequent usability concerns

Over time, the search experience degraded due to

Poor ranking logic
Content-heavy results layout
Inconsistent filtering
Zero results for minor spelling errors
Delayed document indexing
Lack of confidence cues in result validation

In usability sessions, users took 3–6 minutes to find the correct policy

Research & Insights

We conducted:

20 one-on-one client interviews
A shared forum with 80+ enterprise users
Observational usability sessions
Support ticket analysis
Sales escalation review

01

Users search in plain language, not policy titles

02

If a result doesn’t appear on page 1, users assume it doesn’t exist

03

Speed matters more than advanced filtering.

The Core Compliant

End User 1

“There are too many irrelevant results.”

End User 2

My keyword result appears on the 8th page, it should be on the first

End User 3

Search operators exist, but they’re too complicated

End User 4

“I don’t know if my keyword is in the title or buried in the document.”

Strategy Shift

The Initial Direction

Leadership initially proposed a visual refresh of the search page as part of a broader UI upgrade initiative. The assumption was that improved layout and styling would address usability complaints.

However, the data suggested otherwise.

I reframed the conversation from

" How do we improve the UI"
to “How do we ensure users get the correct result every time?”

Current Search Experience

Before diving into finding solutions, I conducted a UX audit to understand how the existing policy search system functioned across different user types and access points. This helped surface core usability issues and system limitations.

Key observations from the audit:

Multiple Entry Points

Users could access search from three different locations, but all routes used the same logic—resulting in inconsistent experiences despite a shared backend.

Search Logic Lacked Clarity

The engine matched keywords across multiple fields (title, description, attachments), but users had no visibility into where the keyword was found in each result.

Overloaded, Unstructured Results

Search results were presented in a dense table view with minimal hierarchy, making it hard to scan or assess relevance at a glance.

Limited Usability of Advanced Search Operators

Advanced users could apply search operators (+, –, *), but most users didn’t know they existed or avoided them due to their complexity.

Possible Solutions

We explored several UX upgrades to make results more transparent and usable:

Quick filters

Easier scanning of documents

Text preview from files

pulled from PDF or Word content with highlights

Match location indicators with match counts

showing how many keyword hits per section

These were high-value improvements—but came with major performance costs due to the way our search backend handled indexing and result rendering

Initial wireframes

We explored several UX upgrades to make results more transparent and usable:

Search area

Apply filters

Search results

#1

Experimenting with Page layouts

#2

Attempt to fit in all the features we liked ( and FAILED)

Overload of information for normal users who only expect to see the results against their keyword

Designing for Different User Roles

The original search experience was designed with admin users in mind, but feedback showed that end users struggled with unnecessary complexity.

🧩

Problems

End users saw too much internal or irrelevant content like manager only comments, attachments etc

The layout was cluttered and not optimized for casual/non-technical users.
Admins could technically configure visibility—but few did, and the default was overwhelming.

💡

Our Approach

Designed a separate view for end users in Phase 1.

Collaborated with the product owner to define what content should be excluded.
Focused the layout on core policy content only: title, date, and document preview.
Dropped the idea of admin-customizable filters for end users after client testing showed it added confusion

Next steps

To move the search redesign forward without overloading the product and engineering teams, we used a structured decision-making framework grounded in real user value, feasibility, and delivery scope.

We evaluated each proposed solution against three core criteria:

👤

User value

Does this directly solve a known pain point

⚙️

Tech Feasibility

Can this feature be implemented with our existing backend & indexing structure

⏲️

Effort & Timeline

Is this something we can deliver within the 2-month MVP sprint window

Impact Effort Matrix

What we shipped in phase 1

We launched a lean, faster, more intuitive search experience:

Google-style result list with snippet previews
Basic filters for folders, dates, and policy type
Simple, clean layout that removed visual clutter

This design didn’t solve everything, but it tackled the top user frustrations immediately—without overloading the team.