Jordan Jalles

NOTE: As LexisNex is a legal company, they are rigid about the Non-Disclosure Agreement, so I can only talk about process and what I learned. I can also offer references to the people I worked with upon request.

Background

LexisNexis is responsible for hosting and providing access to one of the most comprehensive legal document databases.

I interned in the iLabs department. iLabs is a Research and Development group responsible for exploratory projects that won't hit the market for several years.

Goal

My task was to iterate on a previous years intern project.

The end goal was to get buy in from the management to upgrade the project from intern to full time funding.

Phase1 - Research

LexisNexis is such a large cooporation that they need internal propaganda to educate each department about the others. The first three weeks of my internship went to understanding the company, users, and product through a variety of methods:

• Contextual Inquiry
• User Behavior Data Visualization
• Customer Journy Mapping
• Usability Test Observation

Phase2 - UI Prototyping

This is when most of the "design" work happened. The project had already passed the wireframing phase, so I was responsible for iterating and fine tuning the UI elements, interactions, and animations.

• Iterated UI elements with Axure
• Built front end prototype in html/css/javascript
• Tested the interface with professional users

Phase3 - Integration

The final phase was where I conformed the design to the company style guides and interaction patterns.

• Integrated the prototype into next version of product
• Used the angular.js and D3.js libraries
• Collaborated with developers to plug into back-end
• Presented project to entire department + managers

What I Learned

• Data Vis is an extemely useful tool for understanding users
• Iterating with digital tools can be faster than sketching
• Motion design is great at directing user attention
• Developing is a time sink

Result - Success!

One year after the end of my internship I got in contact with my internship mentor. He informed me that my project goal was a success! The managers had upgraded the project from intern to full time and it was currently being developed/tested with Law Students.

Additionally, they saw that my contribution to the project was significant enough to include my name as an inventor on the patent!