Alethea

Overview

At Alethea, I served as the sole UX Designer, leading the design of a data analysis platform that helps organizations detect and respond to disinformation campaigns. The product required advanced data visualization, multi-step workflows, and tools for different user types, from analysts to executives. My role was to transform this highly complex, data-heavy experience into an intuitive, accessible, and consistent interface.

The Problem

Alethea needed a scalable UX solution for analyzing and visualizing large volumes of data. The existing workflows were complex and unintuitive, creating steep learning curves for internal teams and external users. The challenge was to design a cohesive experience that:

  • Simplified complex data visualization

  • Supported multiple user roles and needs

  • Enabled the company to deliver features quickly while maintaining usability

The Process

Design Examples

My Role

As the sole UX Designer, I was responsible for:

  • Gathering requirements from cross-functional stakeholders (Analysis, Customer Success, Marketing, and Engineering)

  • Leading user research to uncover pain points and usability barriers

  • Creating personas, wireframes, and prototypes

  • Conducting usability testing and iterating on findings

  • Designing a scalable design system to ensure consistency

Alethea's product, Artemis, was a tool that allowed clients to explore social media content related to their concerns. Users could create searches by specifying one or more keywords, such as their company name. The software would return posts containing those keywords, providing both a summary of the results and a raw list of posts in a table for further, more detailed analysis.

One of the most complex projects I worked on was the redesign of our query builder, known internally and to our clients as the "Conversation Builder." This tool allowed users to construct searches for social media posts across multiple platforms, including Reddit, X, and Truth Social. The redesign went beyond visual enhancements, focusing on introducing new features and refining existing ones to streamline the search-building process. The primary goal was to enable users to create complex searches more intuitively, without requiring advanced technical expertise. The screenshot shows what the “Conversation Builder” looked like when this initiative started. As you can see, the functionality is pretty basic and unless you are proficient with boolean logic you are limited in how specific your results will be.

Query Builder

FigJam workflow

After conducting numerous user interviews, gathering extensive requirements, and analyzing competitors, I transitioned to FigJam to rapidly map out the workflow without being constrained by visual details. This approach enabled me to iterate quickly, make adjustments based on ongoing feedback, and refine the workflow efficiently. By focusing on functionality and flow first, I ensured a solid foundation before layering on visual design.

High Fidelity Design

Once the workflow was thoroughly tested for intuitiveness and effectiveness, I transitioned to high-fidelity designs. Leveraging our established design system made this process more efficient. The pre-defined components allowed me to quickly create polished assets that were both visually consistent and aligned with our brand guidelines. Below is a sample of the high-fidelity designs created following the completion of the wireframing and information architecture stages.

One of my earliest projects at Alethea was a full platform revamp and redesign. Since there was no in-house design team when I joined, there were no existing design files, so everything had to be created from scratch. While this meant more work, it also made the redesign easier, as I could build clean, cohesive designs without needing to update any legacy assets. Another significant effort was updating our color scheme to enhance brand cohesion and give the app a more modern look and feel.

Platform Revamp

Network Activity Chart

Orignal App

When collecting posts that matched the keyword search, we grouped similar posts into what we called “Topics.” For example, if many posts mentioned a specific event, we would group them together and label them accordingly. In this screenshot, you can see how we presented a summary of each “Topic,” highlighting details such as platform distribution, commonly mentioned sites, and the timeline of when the posts were published.

New Design

This is the design after several rounds of redesign across the platform. While we’re still displaying much of the same information, it’s now presented in a more modern, user-friendly way. I aimed to add variety to the chart types to make the data visualizations more engaging, avoiding repetitive bar charts. You’ll also notice a refreshed color scheme, where I used gradients to represent changes in quantity and a diverse color palette for different elements, such as in the "Post Volume Over Time by Platform" line graph, where each platform is represented by a distinct color.

Result Table Redesign

Orignal App

This screenshot shows the original version of the search results page, which displayed a raw list of posts returned from a user’s query. While the design provided a straightforward way to view post details, it surfaced only a limited set of data points. As a result, users often had to click into individual posts to access the information they needed, slowing down their workflow and making it harder to compare results efficiently.

New Design

This design showcases the updates I made to the table displaying posts that matched the user’s search. Key improvements that enhanced the user experience include:

  • Configurable table options, allowing users to choose which columns are visible, reorder them, and set certain columns as "sticky" (non-scrolling).

  • A multi-row result layout, where the bottom row remains fixed, enabling users to scroll through the top row columns while always seeing the post content (text, images, interaction stats). See the prototype for horizontal scrolling behavior here.

  • The ability to sort the table by any column and search across all columns or just within the post text.

One of my major projects at Alethea was designing a dashboard that provided users with valuable insights about their search at a glance. This view didn’t exist before, so I built it from scratch, drawing from details in a basic tool analysts had been using to consolidate data into useful groupings. The design evolved through multiple rounds of research and interviews with analysts across various focus areas.

Dashboard

Dashboard Future Planning Example

One of the key widgets on the current dashboard is the "Amplification Preview," which provides insights into what content is being amplified and by whom. During the initial research for this widget, we determined that it should be built in phases for better planning. I designed a simplified version, visible in the full page layout, as well as a more advanced future version (shown below). The future design allows users to view insights either as individual posts (Overall) or clustered by platform. Keeping these long-term goals in mind guided the design of the initial phase, ensuring it could easily evolve into the final version.