The Problem – “Old Search”

Jostle’s previous search experience faced a lack of context and refinement for search results, along with delayed performance. This caused a disconnect when trying to understand search results.

This led to many customer complaints about old search – with people not being able to find anything… which kind of defeats the purpose of Search!

Goals + Intention

These were the key problems to solve for:

1. Unify search – Replace two separate Search experiences with one cohesive search flow
2. Improve relevance – Provide clearer context on why results appear
3. Expand coverage – Expand search result coverage
4. Enhance performance – Speed up search response times

Using Job Stories to Define Journeys

We used a job story framework to envision scenarios needed to deliver and guide the strategy. This helped us to focus search scenarios.

Working with the product team – I helped to develop the vision and strategy for our new search offering. We developed a framework that helped guide how we wanted data to be displayed.

List experience. Simplified experience.

The result was a single, consistent search experience that expanded coverage to more of Jostle’s content – complete with smarter metadata matches, faster performance, and clearer context on why results appear.

Getting to the Final Result – Internal Testing and Iteration

Because of the scope and scale of development work, we decided to use internal alpha testing as a way to test our search results. Because search results rely on scoring to determine which results are relevant – we needed real user data to evaluate performance. So why not use our own data – and let our own employees test this!

By running multiple rounds of internal testing, we gathered actionable feedback that helped us fine-tune everything from result ranking to metadata clarity. These iterative improvements shaped the final design and ensured the experience worked well for real-world use cases – starting with our own.

Search Entry + Autosuggestions

Users begin with a redesigned search bar that includes autosuggestions as they type, helping them start their queries with confidence. Upon sending a query, results are returned in a list view.

Tabbed Views

Customers can access different areas of a platform – and sometimes you need to find something in a specific area. A tabbed view switcher lets users easily switch between result categories. This made the experience feel more focused and helped people explore results without losing context.

Old vs. New Metadata

We rethought how metadata was presented across the board. Compared to the old experience, the new layout surfaces the most relevant details, improves scannability, and enhances clarity – creating a faster, more intuitive way to navigate content.

But what about AI?

👀 stay tuned…

Reflection

Leading this project taught me how to design at scale – and build trust with a critical path that every user will likely interact with in the platform. In projects like this – it reinforced the importance of flexibility in design systems, and pushed me to think about how data needs to be structured, passed, and displayed to support a scalable, consistent experience.