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Laboratory for Analytic Sciences

Overview

Design an interface using the affordances of machine learning to provide a personalized user experience so that intelligence analysts can quickly and knowledgeably enter their day’s workflow.

Collaborators

Elizabeth Gabriel

Jillian Swaim

Type

User Experience

Case Study

Year

2022

Interface Solution

Analysts open their Atlas software to a summary of the day. New reports are summarized in a running text on the left, with highlighted words paired to images and documents on the right. Emails, customer interests, and tag filters sit along the bottom.

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Problem

Intelligence analysts provide warnings of potential terrorist actions against U.S. interests. Our analyst, Chloe, faces a pile of "dots," intelligence data arriving from many different sources. Her first job is deciding which dots are worth connecting, then inferring what those connections mean.

Image of miro board showing background work for project

Before heading into Figma, Miro was our home for collaborating on notes and research

Image of Chloe persona diagram

Persona for Chloe, the analyst reporter. Including task flow, pain points, etc.

We interviewed several intelligence analysts along the way and mapped our takeaways.

Screenshot of interview over zoom

Faces are blurred for the privacy of the analysts

Screenshot of interview over zoom
Screenshot of interview over zoom
Sketching

We did a ton of low fidelity sketching and proceeded to "kill our babies."

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Screenshot of a sketch
Screenshot of a sketch
Screenshot of a sketch

One concept I developed further. Still think it was a good idea, but I let this one go.

Screenshot of a sketch
Screenshot of a sketch
Screenshot of a sketch
Screenshot of a sketch

Version 1

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Screenshot of a sketch
Screenshot of a sketch
Screenshot of a sketch
© Brian Sekelsky