It’s not impossible, it’s just complicated

Project: Security software design system

Role: Team lead, product design
What that means I really did: Directed the work of other designers on the team; led interdisciplinary project team, including project planning and client relationship management; contributed product design, particularly in areas of configuration workflow.

DockYard: Ben Munson, (Director of Product Design), Brad Sarro (Principal Product Designer), Azure Davis (Senior Product Designer), Anna Vasylenko (Product Designer)

Founded in 1883, multinational conglomerate Johnson Controls International (JCI) produces fire, HVAC, and security equipment for buildings. After years of acquisitions and disparate development cycles, JCI hired DockYard to integrate their multiple standalone security products in a unified user experience and operator interface. The scope of this engagement was explicitly focused on UX and product design, but we took the opportunity to challenge functionality assumptions and promote feature enhancements whenever possible.

It would be an understatement to call JCI’s array of security products “feature rich.” Enabling them all to play nicely together was no easy feat.

The design system DockYard delivered powers the company’s flagship integrated security product, unifying many legacy provisioning and operator interfaces across access control and video surveillance products. And the design system is built to evolve as business and user needs change over time, including a planned expansion into AI-assisted audio and video surveillance.

Considering the vast size and complexity of the product, we designed components that could be used across various product areas. The “find/filter” component, for example, allows users to efficiently locate staff members in the personnel area; select specific device types in configuration; and add cameras to a custom dashboard in video monitoring mode.

The true mark of successful digital design — even when working with highly complex projects — is a system in which both a power user and a novice can have a good experience. Our unified design approach met business goals and integrated feedback from actual customers with a consistent, accessible, and ambitious experience to deliver the deep set of functionalities and operations that make JCI’s software such a powerful product.