RegSearch is a search tool for federal procurement regulations and associated documents. The software was unable to serve today’s acquisition professional due to conflicts with modern browser technology and outdated user experience. The product hadn’t been updated in over 15 years and didn’t accurately reflect current software engineering capabilities.
RegSearch was given an updated look and feel, built from the ground up with modern technologies, and added numerous features acquisition professionals needed most. Some new features include more robust search tools, custom document sets, creating a bookmark list, and many more.
This project was built at Distributed Solutions, Inc. in Reston, VA on a team of 5 people in 2016.
Previously, users of RegSearch were typically using the software to search a topic they need information on, manually searching through the relevant documents, and gathering that information for future use elsewhere by either copying text or printing the entire document (which can be hundreds of pages). These scenarios contain UX pain points that we wanted to change in the updated RegSearch.
UX features to be added in the update:
The direction behind the design:
With the main purpose of the software being to find information by within documents, simplicity and large reading panes were at the forefront of the overall design direction. If you look at the screenshots down the page, all content remained visible on screen with the reading pane only consisting of about 25% of the entire window – this was a pain point, only showing relevant content in a quarter of the window. I started off with a basic bootstrap template and slowly started adding the necessary components, keeping the layout as minimal as possible. Previously, check boxes and links were used to complete tasks and features were not intuitive, nor was there any sort of instruction guide within the software – this was another pain point, confusing user interface controls hindered it’s usability. Commonly used icons would be used to assist the user when trying to accomplish more complex tasks within the software. Icon design took inspiration from widely used platforms such as Google’s material design, Bootstrap’s built in icons, as well as Microsoft. Higher contrasting colors were used when highlighting important text from a search, previously it was only red text within a block of black text – this was another pain point we wanted to fix, higher contrast increased readability within a block of text.
After numerous rounds of refinement, RegSearch relaunched with a refreshed user experience that simplifies research tasks, adds additional features like printing/sharing, and better aligns with business goals while showing product/ux design capabilities. Because it was built in Bootstrap, it works in all modern browsers and on mobile (RegSearch previously only worked in IE7). The reading pane size was increased significantly, up from approximately 25% of the screen to 75%, allowing the user to find what they need quickly and adjusting as screen sizes vary across all devices. Creation and sharing of custom documents has allowed teams to quickly tackle federal procurement research projects together.
