Summary
The Digital Asset Library serves as the creative hub for internal teams to access and manage brand visuals, ensuring consistency and quality across campaigns worldwide. Adobe AEM redesigned the backend and frontend for the asset library.
I lead the redesign, solved a developmental blocker, and improved the usability
Conducted a UX audit, interviewed users on the library floor, and reduced task time by 50%.
Advanced search was designed with out-of-box AEM components, unblocked the project, and sped up development.
Not only did we solve the search problems, but we also introduced a new design theme and new features.
Brainstormed features like Workflow and Lightbox for the product roadmap.
The Ralph Lauren Collection
A physical library in New York that stored cloths and garments from 1700 through the 2000s. These are famous pieces of clothes, worn by novelty depicting the fashion of that era. Designers would check them for study or inspiration
1. UX Discovery
Adobe's internal digital asset management system was to replace Ralph Lauren's digital asset library. The Dev team hit a blocker and asked the design team to address it.
I started with a UX Audit by Heuristic Evaluation with existing screenshots to discover the usability issues
Collaborated with the project manager, account manager, and lead engineer to understand the blockers they were facing.
The team wanted to fix the issue within 3 weeks to move ahead
There was no primary or secondary data available.
Access to the system was limited.
2. My Approach
Business, tech, and time constraints were framed, but the user perspective was missing. Post root cause analysis, I understood that we need to study how the library is to be used by the employees. We decided to conduct user interviews on-site
I made a short trip to NYC to talk to the team and understand floor mechanics and talk to the people that are using the digital library
I conducted 8 interviews and 1 focus group discussion
Posting findings, we understood that users are overwhelmed by the system
Users spent too much time searching on the portal and did not get what they wanted.
The performance of the portal was very low and needed to be improved.
3. User personas
To design a solution that truly aligns with user goals and frustrations, we focused on three primary personas—each interacting with the Digital Asset Library in distinct ways.
These personas were a fashion designer, an event manager, & a digital librarian.
4. Problem Statement
Core Problem Statement:
“Enable 3 personas—Designers, Event Managers, Digital Librarians—to find, manage, and check out digital assets efficiently within the constraints of Adobe’s DAM integration.”
Personas & Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD):
Fashion Designers (80% user base): Seek visual inspiration, spend 5–8 hrs/week
Event Managers: Browse asset groups/fabrics, ~1–4 hrs/week
Digital Librarians: Handle check-outs and metadata; 2–4 hrs/day
Usability Findings Summary:
Overwhelmed by 100+ categories, 600 filter options
Search is complicated with lack of filter or sorting options
Asset details and functionality had lot of usability issues
Frequent issues with cart/checkout friction (to be handled by dev)
The system had performance issues (to be handled by dev)
5. Ideation
Keeping in mind the time constraint, we jumped on a Crazy 8 workshop
Participants were asked to sketch ideas they had that could improve the portal, draw any flows they thought were missing or just jot down thoughts
We made sure that we had all personas represented with Adobe account/project manager, designer (myself), and a lead engineer.
We brainstormed the design issues and looked for inspiration outside the industry.
Below are indicative screens to a similiar challenge we solved for "Hikvision"
These are not related to "Ralph Lauren"
6. Designs - First Draft
Rapid Designs
The high-fidelity wireframes focusing on powerful search interactions and a multipurpose home page
UX Law in Play:
Hick’s Law—simplify decision points (filters) to reduce cognitive load.
Jakob’s Law—users expect familiar paradigms (saved searches, A–Z filters).
Guerrilla tests and feedback
The team felt it was “too flashy and heavy” and would overwhelm users and dev cycles.
They liked the design but we were asked to revert to RL Brand and website guidelines for quick approvals
The team liked the search interaction. We double-clicked and layered the faucets for better experience
eg grouping Asset type—Physical, Digital, A/V, Documents—helped user filter faster
Plain text was preferred to custom icons.
Navigation on search screens was preferred to first screen
The home page felt generic and we observed that users still spent time searching
We decided to personalize the application according to different personas. We would now have 3 home pages—Search, Collections and Lightbox
Lightbox (workspace) was to be taken up in phase 2
7. Improved Designs
"Invisible, personalized & Scalable"
We shifted to a ralph lauren design system to simplify approvals
Simplified header with mix of icon and text links
Messy but functional. We had to use similar CTAs across the product
We kept the design bit similiar to the current designs and would bring in gradual changes in the visual language
Introduces primary and secondary faucets, saved searches, saved filters
Focussed on asset page and asset metadata
8. Redesign highlights
The old application had two main features: asset search and profile. For the revamped RL's Digital Library, we simplified search and added collections and Lightbox (curated collection + order). The design is flat with a dark blue and gold color palette. We also ideated on approval flows to simplify job of librarian
Multiple Homepages / Hyper Personalization
We found it best that the three personas landed on their own personalised home pages to optimize work
Search, Collections, and Workflow were the 3 main sections for landing pages.
These would be available for all users but the default landing page would change
Event managers —— Collections page
Fashion Designers —— Search page
Workflow —— Digital librarian(upcoming)
Search feature optimization
The search consisted of 100+ categories and 600 filter options
We introduced primary and secondary filter levels based on user input.
We introduced saved search, so that commonly applied & preferred filters were already applied
Introduced A-Z filter sorting within the categories
Also we introduced search within the filters for some categories
Asset/Product Page
Enhanced Asset Quick look to include improved zoom in features and previous/next navigation
Metadata could be seen better on web and mobile screens
Brainstormed new features like Workflow for Quick Approvals and Lightbox -
Curated collections to be taken in phase 2
9. Outcome & Learnings
Outcomes
The post-design survey resulted in users feeling confident about the system
The multiple home pages were invisible to other personas but simplified the user's workflows
Adobe analytics revealed that users are spending 40% less time with the application
Mobile usability improved, but adoption declined slightly. We missed prioritizing a "notification" system that will increase adoption.
Learnings
A user-centered design, can be done in a short time of 3 weeks
I site this example of how to approach a problem without availability of primary/secondary data
It improved the primary search issue and increased the usability of the system
Adobe got awarded the phase 2 and phase 3 design of the project
