Global Relay
My Archive: One Searchable Inbox for Every Message
A personal archive search feature for faster information retrieval
1
Project Overview
What is the Global Relay App?
Global Relay is a software company providing cloud-based messaging, archiving, and compliance services for organizations worldwide. Its flagship messaging app securely captures and archives communication channels—email, instant messaging, social media, and SMS—so that businesses, including highly regulated industries like finance, can meet record-keeping and compliance requirements.
While the Global Relay App already captured and archived messages from multiple communication channels, users still faced challenges when trying to retrieve that information efficiently.
2
The Opportunity
Inconsistent Search Experiences Across Channels
Users in regulated industries such as finance and healthcare often need to locate past communications, sometimes months or even years old, while working under strict deadlines. These searches typically occur in high-pressure situations such as legal audits, client disputes, or compliance reviews where accuracy and speed are critical.
Although users had access to a centralized archiving system, retrieving specific information quickly was still a challenge. The existing search experience lacked filtering options by name, contact type, or attachment, which made it difficult to narrow results. Users also struggled to scan and preview relevant content efficiently or search within text bodies and conversation threads. The absence of detailed filters and refinement tools made even simple searches time-consuming and frustrating.
This resulted in:
Significant time spent searching for information
Users often had to browse through large lists of archived conversations to find the right one.
Limited ability to focus on what mattered
Without meaningful filters or previews, it was easy to overlook important details or miss critical context.
Operational inefficiency
Slow searches and manual verification led to wasted time and unnecessary effort across compliance and client-facing teams.
As an Intermediate UI Designer on the Global Relay App team, I collaborated closely with UX designers, product managers, and developers to design and refine the My Archive feature. My work focused on understanding how users search for and retrieve archived communications across different contexts and devices. Together with the product team, I explored possible task flows and use cases to ensure the feature supported a wide range of search behaviors, from quick keyword lookups to complex multi-filter queries.
Designing intuitive search flows and interaction patterns that made information retrieval faster and more consistent.
Collaborating with product managers to define search use cases, identify edge cases, and refine user journeys.
Creating scalable interface components within the existing design system to maintain visual consistency across mobile and desktop.
Working with developers to validate functionality, ensure feasibility, and align on design handoff and implementation details.
Selected Taskflows
Performing a keyword search in My Archive:
Contextual searches from header details for email
3
Requirements and Goals
Designing an Archive Search
Many users work in fast-paced, high-stakes environments where they need to access past communications quickly and accurately. The goal was to create a simple, unified search experience that reduced friction and allowed users to find exactly what they needed without navigating confusing systems.
Through ideation and exploration, I mapped out potential pain points and use cases that users would likely encounter when searching for archived content. This included scenarios such as locating a specific conversation by sender, reviewing messages tied to a client or project, or finding attachments exchanged during a compliance audit. These explorations guided how filtering, search, and refinement features were prioritized for the MVP release.
Cross-channel search
Aggregate and search across email, chat, WhatsApp, text, voice, and social media from one inbox.
Fast search results
Deliver results in seconds using Global Relay’s optimized archive technology.
Gesture-based controls
Reduce typing and input errors by enabling gesture shortcuts, especially for mobile users.
Attachment sharing
Allow users to quickly find and share attached files or contracts from within their archive.
Desktop
4
Design Approach
A Unified Search Experience
The goal was to design a single, consistent interface that felt lightweight, fast, and familiar, while still meeting Global Relay’s high standards for compliance and security. Every design decision focused on helping users find information quickly without feeling overwhelmed by technical complexity.
My approach centered on creating a clear visual hierarchy, simplifying the steps between search and result, and ensuring that the experience felt seamless across platforms. The final design prioritized accessibility, speed, and intuitive interaction, making it easy for users to locate critical information when they needed it most.
Efficiency at the Core
Users needed to access essential messages, attachments, and conversation histories in seconds—no matter where they originated. The design reduced unnecessary steps and brought the most important actions, such as searching, filtering, and previewing, to the forefront.
Cross-Channel Clarity
The interface was designed to unify results from multiple communication streams, allowing users to search across email, chat, voice, and social platforms in one place. Consistent visual patterns, icons, and typography created a cohesive experience across all channels.
Human-Centered Search
Search interactions were built around the natural ways users look for information. Gesture-based controls and saved searches allowed frequent actions to be performed with minimal effort. The experience was designed to support quick discovery, repetitive tasks, and gradual learning through subtle onboarding cues.
5
Reflection
Designing for Learnability, Pace, and Cognitive Ease
Designing a cross-channel archive experience required balancing power and simplicity. While My Archive successfully unified search and retrieval across communication types, our reflections centered on how to make these capabilities feel effortless, especially for users managing compliance responsibilities under time pressure.
Diverse message formats and metadata complexity
Unified interface that standardized message display and tagging for clarity.
Low discoverability of new gesture interactions
Proposed phased feature releases with smaller updates to reduce mental load and encourage confident adoption.
Difficulty refining large result sets
Enhanced filtering and content highlighting, enabling users to narrow searches and visually scan for key information.
The reflection phase revealed that simplicity and gradual learning were key to helping users feel confident in the product. It also highlighted how design could reduce cognitive load in high-pressure compliance workflows. These insights became the foundation for the next stage of development, where we focused on evolving My Archive into an even more intuitive and adaptive experience.
Desktop
6
Next Steps
Laying the Groundwork for the Next Phase of My Archive
If given another iteration, we would focus on refining the experience through improved onboarding, pacing, and clarity. Strengthening the onboarding for gestures and shortcuts would help users build familiarity more naturally through in-context hints and short, guided demos. We would also introduce new features gradually to prevent change fatigue, allowing users to adapt to smaller, more digestible updates over time. Finally, enhancing highlighting and filtering tools would make relevant content easier to spot, helping users quickly identify and access the messages that matter most.
The My Archive project demonstrated how thoughtful design can transform a compliance-driven requirement into a user-centered experience. By simplifying search, streamlining navigation, and creating visual and functional consistency across platforms, the feature helped professionals regain control over their information and work with greater confidence. The process reinforced the importance of designing for clarity, predictability, and trust—especially in environments where speed and accuracy directly affect business outcomes.
