Project 2: Document Finder UX

Expanded Problem Statement

Analysts juggle thousands of documents – research reports, financial statements, emails – across siloed systems. They waste hours weekly searching for files, often using clunky internal tools or manual folder browsing. Pain points include:

• Inability to filter search by client, date, or content type in one place.

• Missed insights because relevant documents remain “hidden” in archives.

• Cluttered interfaces that overwhelm rather than help (long lists of results with no context). This not only hurts productivity, it risks incomplete analyses when key documents are overlooked.

Feature Description

The Document Finder UX is a centralized search hub offering:

• Unified Search Bar connected to all internal repositories (reports, emails, PDFs).

• Dynamic Filters (e.g., date range, company ticker, author) to narrow results quickly.

• Preview Pane showing snippets of content with highlighted keywords, so analysts verify relevance without opening each document.

• Saved Searches or pinning frequent queries (e.g., “Client XYZ Q4 Reports”). The design emphasizes a clean layout: a prominent search bar at top, filters on the side, results in the main panel. By streamlining search, analysts can spend more time analyzing rather than digging.

Deliverables

• Wireframes & High-Fidelity Mockups of the search interface, filter menus, and result previews.

• Search Relevance Test Scripts to ensure the AI backend ranks the most useful documents first.

• Clickthrough Prototype simulating an analyst’s journey finding a specific report.

• User Testing Reports from financial analysts who try the prototype and give feedback.

Skills to Manage

• UX Research & Design: to craft intuitive filtering and ensure the interface feels light, not cluttered.

• AI/ML (Information Retrieval): Implementing semantic search so relevant content surfaces even with vague queries.

• Data Security & Compliance: Ensuring sensitive financial documents are handled properly and search results respect user permissions.

Risks to Manage

• Relevance Accuracy: Poor search results could erode confidence; need ongoing tuning and an easy way to flag irrelevant results.

• Performance: Searching across vast repositories could be slow; caching and efficient indexing are critical.