Designing a revolutionary cybersecurity SaaS product from the ground up
Product Design and UX Research
Client
Signal Sciences
My roles
Product Designer
UX Research Lead
UX Research Lead
Our customers
Adobe
AirBnb
Datadog
Duo
Etsy
Goldman Sachs
Taser
Vimeo
Under Armour
Yelp
AirBnb
Datadog
Duo
Etsy
Goldman Sachs
Taser
Vimeo
Under Armour
Yelp
Context
I was with Signal Sciences (now part of Fastly) from its founding in 2014 until 2018. I was the company's first and only designer for the initial 2.5 years. I led and created all design work until we brought on a second designer in 2016.
Signal Sciences created a revolutionary web security SaaS product that helps companies understand exactly when and where they're being attacked, who's trying to hack them, and how. Signal Sciences' patented technology does all of this in real time, which helps security teams to easily prioritize their efforts. When I worked at Signal Sciences, our product helped protect over 10 billion requests per day.
Once we brought a second designer on in 2016, I became the company’s User Research Lead, but still helped design every feature we launched.
Signal Sciences created a revolutionary web security SaaS product that helps companies understand exactly when and where they're being attacked, who's trying to hack them, and how. Signal Sciences' patented technology does all of this in real time, which helps security teams to easily prioritize their efforts. When I worked at Signal Sciences, our product helped protect over 10 billion requests per day.
Once we brought a second designer on in 2016, I became the company’s User Research Lead, but still helped design every feature we launched.
Problem statement
The company's three co-founders, Nick Galbreath, Zane Lackey, and Andrew Peterson, had previously run the cybersecurity team at Etsy. While there, they had a novel idea for how to do real-time web traffic monitoring and attack blocking. They decided to leave Etsy and founded Signal Sciences to create their vision.
On my first day with the new company, Zane drew me this diagram on a whiteboard of the first dashboard I would be designing…literally nothing existed outside of these crude sketches and ideas.
In true start-up fashion, it was my job to lead and create all things design.
On my first day with the new company, Zane drew me this diagram on a whiteboard of the first dashboard I would be designing…literally nothing existed outside of these crude sketches and ideas.
In true start-up fashion, it was my job to lead and create all things design.
Design approach
I use the Double Diamond framework from the British Design Council as an overarching guide to plan and structure my projects:
Here’s a sampling of the work I did at Signal Sciences in the following Double Diamond phases:
1. Exploring the problem space
• Stakeholder interviews
• Customer interviews (our initial users were all security and DevOps engineers so I had to quickly ramp up on knowledge of technical material and the security world in order to even interview them)
• Competitive analysis
• Studying analogous products
• Customer interviews (our initial users were all security and DevOps engineers so I had to quickly ramp up on knowledge of technical material and the security world in order to even interview them)
• Competitive analysis
• Studying analogous products
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2. Deciding what to work on
• Product workshops
• Design workshops
• Effort vs. impact
• Design workshops
• Effort vs. impact
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3. Creating and testing potential solutions
• Lean MVPs
• Sitemaps
• Workflow diagrams
• Lo-fi sketches
• Mid-fi prototypes
• Usability tests
• Solution tests
• Sitemaps
• Workflow diagrams
• Lo-fi sketches
• Mid-fi prototypes
• Usability tests
• Solution tests
sitemap
Lo-fi sketches
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Mid-fidelity wireframes
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User testing
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4. Launching and refining final solutions
• Type scale
• Design system and patterns
• Mock-ups
• Critiques
• Final designs
• Analytics
• UX tests with customers
• Design system and patterns
• Mock-ups
• Critiques
• Final designs
• Analytics
• UX tests with customers
Version 1 of product ui — 2014
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Version 2 of product ui — 2016
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Design system & principles — 2017
Joint effort with second designer
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Version 3 of product ui — 2018
Joint effort with second designer
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Marketing design
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Outcomes
Supported by my initial design of the product, our Sales team was able to sign contracts within the first year with Yelp, Duo, Shutterstock, Yelp, and Taser.
Our team's collective work resulted a SaaS product that won multiple industry-wide awards and set a new standard in cybersecurity. Eventually, Signal Sciences was acquired by Fastly.
Here are some of the reviews customers shared that reflect the impact of my contributions:
Our team's collective work resulted a SaaS product that won multiple industry-wide awards and set a new standard in cybersecurity. Eventually, Signal Sciences was acquired by Fastly.
Here are some of the reviews customers shared that reflect the impact of my contributions:
"Signal Sciences has given us confidence in our application security posture especially for current and future acquisitions. Their architecture, install process, and interface make it seamless to start receiving real-time attack telemetry and intelligence so that we can prioritize our defensive efforts based on actual attacks."
Ivan Leichtling
Head of Security, Yelp & Eat24
Ivan Leichtling
Head of Security, Yelp & Eat24
"It’s refreshing to work with a security product that not only provides exceptional security benefits, but also prioritizes performance, reliability, and overall operational manageability. Signal Sciences is easy for our DevOps team to use and support, which allows us to focus on the security capabilities is provides, rather than fighting with basic operational issues."
Jenner Holden
Head of Information Security, Taser
Jenner Holden
Head of Information Security, Taser