Archipelago is an AI-powered insurance platform that helps organizations manage and share complex property data. During my time as a Product Designer, I contributed to several features across the platform — including geotagging tools and global filters.
This case study focuses on the design of a new file management system — built under strict technical and time constraints, and designed to support thousands of insurance documents across multiple clients.
The feature was aimed at property specialists and account managers — users who previously relied on tools like Dropbox or Google Drive to store insurance documents.
The challenge was to offer a solution better tailored to the way insurance files are used, searched, and shared — all without the benefit of working search functionality.
Our objective was to quickly build an MVP that could:
Organize thousands of documents across client accounts
Use metadata and tagging to support fast filtering
Upsell platform value by replacing generic storage tools
However, search was not available due to technical limitations — and the files themselves lacked consistent naming conventions, making it difficult to rely on standard search or indexing.
I partnered closely with account managers to understand how they currently organized and retrieved files. Through interviews, live working sessions, and even recorded client meetings, I mapped their mental models, tagging strategies, and workflows for surfacing documents quickly.
Using those insights, I designed a system built around visual clarity, smart filtering, and consistent metadata. Each file could be tagged by type, usage, and relevance — and I ensured that navigation patterns reflected the way users naturally searched for files (not just how they were stored).
I also proposed lightweight interventions to improve file naming hygiene, even without a fully automated system — helping users self-correct issues over time.
We soft-launched internally with account managers, who frequently needed to retrieve key file types like SOVs. Before the new system, finding the right file could take anywhere from 1–12 minutes. After the redesign, the average time dropped to 30 seconds, with a maximum of 2 minutes — a massive improvement in daily workflows.
This project demonstrated that even with infrastructure constraints, smart UX decisions can drive speed, clarity, and long-term product value.