Optimizing the Journal Search Platform

Improving speed, focus, and accuracy for finding relevant journal information

Optimizing the Journal Search Platform

Improving speed, focus, and accuracy for finding relevant journal information

My Roles

Product lead, UX/UI, research, project management, QA, frontend development

Team

Designer (me), 2 developers, CTO

Tools

Figma, Azure, TailwindCSS, Vue, ECharts

Year

2022

My Roles

Product lead, UX/UI, research, project management, QA, frontend development

Team

Designer (me), 2 developers, CTO

Tools

Figma, Azure, TailwindCSS, Vue, ECharts

Year

2022

Problem

Journalytics users struggled to find relevant scholarly journals. Inaccurate data, slow load times, confusing information architecture, and unclear visualizations made search results frustrating and inefficient.

Solution

We completely rehauled the search functionality and information architecture, creating a more intuitive experience that aligned with user intent and easier discovery of relevant journals.

Data visualizations were redesigned to be clear and informative, allowing users to understand journal metrics at a glance. We chose appropriate ones based on the metric’s complexity. Text worked for basic datasets, while charts like heatmaps, polar charts, and historical line graphs were built with customized libraries (like Apache ECharts) to show relationships and trends.

Using Azure, we implemented advanced search algorithms for filtering options and adjusted weighting to prioritize relevant results based on user queries. We collaborated with engineers and data providers to better integrate third-party data sources (like Altmetrics) and highlight in-house metrics relevant to journal evaluation (like CCI and MedSCI). This included fixing API connections and reworking data import and matching workflows.

Finally, we upgraded the platform to a Single Page Application (SPA) framework using Angular—then Vue.js, resulting in faster and more dynamic page loads.

Impact

The overhaul delivered a faster, more user-friendly experience with faster page loads. Users could now discover relevant journals with greater ease and efficiency thanks to the improved search functionality.

Reduced manual effort for data maintenance freed up valuable time for engineers. Data accuracy and completeness increased, leading to more reliable results for users.

Process

Search platform (before)

Search platform (after)

Sketching search filters

Editing search filters

Journal card information architecture

Journal card wireframe

Metric brainstorming

Metric variations

Planning and editing the sorting options