During summer of 2025, I worked closely with a lead product designer to evaluate and improve search and filtering experiences across all Docusign products.
Because Docusign was in a rebranding period transitioning from eSignature to IAM (Intellectual Agreement Management), there was a need to get a holistic understanding of what search and filtering features existed at the time and how they performed.
Due to confidentiality, I cannot share the bulk of my work for this project. Please feel free to reach out to me. Here are some brief notes about the work I did ✏️
What I worked on 💫
Identified and audited 120+ search and filtering features across Docusign webpages to get a holistic view of how search and filtering were being used.
Worked closely with a lead product designer to create and test a UX quality framework to evaluate the effectiveness of search and filtering features. This framework can potentially be integrated into JIRA.
Led a pilot diary study from planning to execution with 3 internal participants to understand their general search experiences in their daily lives.
Presented my summer internship findings to over 50 product team members, emphasizing weaknesses in error handling and user delight within search and filtering features.
Key Takeaways
Error handling is a huge part of improving user search experiences 🔍
I learned that effective search design depends on how well a system prevents, explains, and helps users recover from errors. When evaluating search performance, I focused on whether the design incorporated autocomplete for error prevention, clear messaging for feedback, and recovery paths that guided users toward successful results.
The best communicators give simple explanations for messy problems 🧩
In a large corporate setting, it's crucial to be able to explain the situation and your work clearly to others who aren't familiar with it. In my internship experience, I met a fabulous researcher who was able to give humorous gaming analogies to drive his point home about users needing more guidance and affordances to begin trying new features. His clarity reminded me that great communication starts with empathy and translation.
