Smartfile
How might we give organizations greater view into the versions and variations of their files and assets? Over the course of a couple weeks, in collaboration with Smartfile’s founder and product leads, I sketched, wireframed, and designed high-fidelity mocks of key features and product UI. While the primary focus was to visualize the “life of a file” as it moves through a large organization, I also used the product design work as an opportunity to explore a new, modern visual design direction and pattern library that could be extended across the entire suite of Smartfile products.
The design solution put individual file at the center of the experience. Users could toggle between a traditional list view and 'Story View:' a visual branching-style UI that represents important events over time. Beyond a traditional filtering sidebar for drill-down, we prototyped new features like a 'Resemblance Score' that quantifies a file versions relationship to the original. Files with extensive edits and other events will have lower scores, as they no longer reflect the original form of the document.
The final prototype was successful in casting a vision for how Smartfile could help diverse teams to navigate and explore how their files and artifacts evolve over time. And while the experience received a warm reception and positive customer feedback when promoted at a company user conference, it ultimately did not move forward after critical implementation challenges surfaced with technical proof of concepts. ◼︎
