Cisco Secure

A design visioning project to unify Cisco’s security products

OVERVIEW

I was selected, along with 5 other designers from across Cisco, to participate in a design visioning project with the goal of generating excitement and inspiration among Cisco’s management for how Cisco’s diverse and disparate set of security products could work together in the future.

ROLE: Product Designer

TEAM: Solo design

TIME: February - April 2021 (8 weeks)

METHODS: Sketching, Design critiquing, Storytelling, Hi-fidelity designs and prototyping

PROJECT MOTIVATION / DESIGN BRIEF

Product design across the Cisco security portfolio lacks a unified user experience. Competing design systems, varying levels of design and engineering resources, and company acquisitions have lead to a disjointed UX. The fragmented, outdated and inconsistent UI results in a lack of trust and confidence from our users.

PROJECT GOALS

Deliver a design concept of how Cisco Secure’s portfolio of 4+ products could be visually integrated in the future, imagining one seamless and cohesive experience.
Re-imagine the current experiences, designing without constraints while focusing on the vision not necessarily the technical specifications. In short, do not allow current paradigms to act as constraints.

MY RESPONSIBILITIES

Note: All aspects of this project were my own, with critique from the other designers and Creative Director along the way.

Craft a cohesive user experience and flow through these 4 products.
Move beyond any current design systems, building my own visual direction from scratch.
Inspire a vision for the future through storytelling, animations, and a modern UI.

DESIGN PROCESS

PROJECT DESIGN PRINCIPLES

To kick off the project, we collaborated as a group to agree on three design principles that would guide our concepts.

PERSONAS / SCENARIOS

I used research from Duo as well as Cisco to hone in on two personas that could use this new unified product, weaving a story for how they could flow through this design.

SKETCHES & WIREFRAMES

As I began understanding the 4 products and also thinking about the personas I was designing for, I started with sketches and wireframes. I shifted focus primarily to Gary’s needs, to highlight the most important actions he needs to take from a security perspective, while also keeping Deborah as a secondary persona.

A problem with the current Cisco Secure experience is an abundance of data, without informing the user about what they should actually be doing with that data. Solving for this problem mapped back to our first design principle, “Simplify the Complex.”

STORY / USER FLOW

I used Mural to map out and wireframe the user flow of how Gary would navigate through all four products. This helped to think through a cohesive and realistic story for the product concept and final presentation.

Screen Shot 2021-04-20 at 8.43.45 PM.png

CURRENT STATE (BEFORE)

Cisco Secure’s security portfolio of products including Duo Security, SecureX, Secure Endpoints, and more acts as more of an umbrella of products rather than an integrated experience. This leads to a disjointed experience and an inability for Cisco to tell a cohesive story of why customers should use these products together.

The Cisco Secure experience as it sits today is 1) visually disjointed and 2) there isn’t a seamless flow for a user to move between the products.

SOLUTION (AFTER)

The solution focuses on a flow for Gary, an IT administrator who is focused on solving key security issues that Cisco Secure has alerted him to take care of. This solution integrates four of Cisco Secure’s products into one, seamless and cohesive experience.

Flow of the product starts at 0:54 mark. The first part explains who the product is for and what problems it aims to solve.

RESULTS / CONCLUSIONS

During the 8 week process, we shared our in-progress designs with one another and the Cisco’s Creative Director in twice-weekly meetings.

At the end of the 8 weeks, I presented the final flow displayed in the video above, which received enthusiastic feedback due to the design’s emphasis on moving beyond just visuals, instead thinking meaningfully about actual user needs and a coherent user journey.

While this will be a 2-3 year journey for Cisco to actually integrate these products, my designs and those from my former colleagues will provide an important and aspirational vision to get there.