A Political Intelligence SaaS, Designed for Discovery
Rebuilt legacy UX from the ground up, simplifying flows, redefining taxonomies and creating a scalable design system.
Brief & Challenge: Consolidating Complexity into One Platform
The context
Dods provides political intelligence and services to consultants, journalists, and public affairs professionals. Their digital ecosystem was fragmented across two outdated platforms, each with overlapping data structures and inconsistent user experiences.
The challenge
The task was to consolidate these into a single SaaS platform, robust enough to handle complex datasets and professional workflows, but clear enough to reduce friction for daily use.
My role
As Lead Product Designer at CI&T, I worked together with an experienced UX researcher to reimagine the product. I was responsible for building the design system, defining scalable UI patterns, and shaping dense data interfaces for experts who depend on speed, accuracy and traceability.
02
Research & Insights: Mapping Content and Taxonomies
Discovery process
We ran a multi-layered discovery combining:
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Stakeholder interviews with consultants, editors, and internal teams.
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Workflow shadowing to see how users navigated tasks in real time.
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Taxonomy audit of legacy databases, highlighting redundancies and overlaps.
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Information architecture mapping using tools like Miro and FigJam to visualise structures.
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Usability testing of legacy flows to capture baseline pain points.
Key Insights
The core issue was to nail down the right architecture with an important taxonomy restructure. Years of incremental growth had created duplicated categories, inconsistent naming, and broken logic. Without a new taxonomy, no redesign would succeed.
Strategic Takeaway
We reorganised the content around three core pillars (People, Organisations, Documents), giving users a clear mental model for filtering and exploration. This became the backbone for the new platform.
03
Design System & UI: Bespoke Components at Scale
A bespoke system
I built a component library of nearly 2,000 bespoke elements, developed for the React framework and stored in Storyboard for cross-team implementation.
Key features
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High-density data layouts optimised for experts working with 20k+ items.
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Scalable filtering patterns capable of handling complex nested queries.
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Consistent navigation logic across directories, alerts, publishing, and rules.
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Accessibility compliance tested for clarity, contrast, and keyboard navigation.
Information hierarchy & scalability
The UI was structured to create progressive disclosure: surfacing critical data first, then allowing users to drill deeper without overload. This ensured scalability not just in design tokens, but in mental load, giving users confidence at every level of interaction.
04
The Web App: A Unified SaaS Platform for Political Intelligence
The Web App
We consolidated two legacy systems into a single web-based SaaS platform, uniting political content, directories, and workflows into one authoritative tool.
Two user groups
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Consultants — could create alerts, publish and tag content, manage access, and deliver insights.
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Clients — could browse content, configure preferences, and receive targeted updates.
Both groups used the same design logic, but with tailored operational realities.
Complex tools inside the platform
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The Injection Tool: processed 20k+ content items, minimising manual work and error risk.
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The Alert Creator: a visual rule-builder for advanced queries, allowing consultants to configure alerts without code.
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Publishing Workflows & Tagging System: blended manual and AI-assisted tagging, complete with approval flows and audit trails.
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Directories: redesigned for usability, surfacing metadata clearly and cross-linking people, organisations, and documents.
Designed for experts
This wasn’t a consumer product. Every interaction was optimised for speed, accuracy, and accountability. Tools built to respect professional-grade needs.
05
Impact & Outcomes: From Fragmentation to Cohesion
User impact
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Professionals completed tasks faster and with greater clarity.
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Workflows were unified into a single, cohesive system.
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Confidence and trust increased thanks to a clear taxonomy and consistent design logic.
Business outcomes
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+42% faster task completion across workflows.
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+33% increase in weekly user sessions.
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+30% uplift in sales conversion.
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A scalable design system reducing dev redundancy and enabling long-term growth.
Long-term value
The redesign didn’t just modernise the interface. It consolidated two fragmented platforms into a single authoritative product, reshaping how political professionals interact with intelligence data.
Crediti
| Cliente | Dods |
|---|---|
| Agenzia | CI&T |
| Ricerca UX & architettura delle informazioni | Aleksandra Podgórska |
| Product & Design System Lead | Matteo Miele |
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