Research repository: A step toward product lead development

Case study

Information architecture

"Getting information architecture right is a lot like getting a product right: it takes many iterations and a lot of feedback."

Background

Insendi used Notion as the central tool for documentation, given its database, project tracking features and widespread adoption across departments. All of the other department feedback information was all ready in notion just spread out across the deparment work spaces. As the sole designer at the time, I also wanted a place for my research but also wanted access to the rest of the feedback and for it to be centralised and uniform.

My Role

As the sole implementer and trainer of this repository, I was responsible for designing and structuring how the databases would be interconnected. This included defining what each database would contain and how the information within them would be weighted and scored to prioritise opportunities effectively.

Product

The Vault consisted of three primary databases, each serving a specific purpose to support our project management and evidence-based approach:

Flowchart showing a hierarchical structure with three tiers. At the top tier, three yellow rectangles labeled 'Initiatives' are aligned horizontally. Directly below each 'Initiatives' block, a green rectangle labeled 'Opportunity' is connected by a vertical line. Each 'Opportunity' block is further linked to two pink rectangles at the bottom tier, each labeled 'Evidence'. This setup visually represents how multiple pieces of evidence support individual opportunities, which in turn support broader initiatives.

Initiatives: High-level business goals for the year.
Opportunities: Potential projects (epics) to achieve these outcomes.
Evidence: Data, feedback, and reports supporting each opportunity.

Outcome

Most people interacting with the system needed only to log evidence. It was then up to the product director and me to triage and categorise this evidence. Overall, it was easy to get a good understanding of a project, its goals, and how it linked back to strategic objectives. Users could dive deeper into the evidence behind these opportunities and build a more empathetic understanding of our users and their problems.

Reflection

I am pleased with how I designed and implemented the architecture and information flow. It took time to refine the system to make it easy for people to log evidence. Training and communication around using this repository went well, and I had productive conversations with many people throughout the organization, getting their feedback and providing guidance on how to better utilise the system. There was a slight disconnect between the evidence for opportunities and their project management in Jira.

Though I was successful in getting others to port their evidence to the new system, the biggest challenge was fostering company-wide mindset of evidence based development and making logging evidence second nature.