Intella Connect Interface

[philrodo]

Now that I got a feel for what Intella Connect will look like, I'm wondering whether its user interface (UI) is too complicated. I mean the current interface is great for forensic examiners, eDiscovery experts, etc. However, for a non-advanced computer user I'm wondering whether they'll be able to navigate the UI and understand what's going on, without requiring hours of tech support. 

 

My thinking is that after processing the files on our end at our forensic lab, we would then make the results available to the attorneys who have engaged us for this case. The attorneys would like to see a user interface that's akin to document review platforms, like Relativity, Concordance, etc. Giving them too many search and display options may be rather confusing. 

 

Are there any plans to incorporate into the Intella Connect Dashboard any options for restricting what is shown on the user interface? Perhaps, the Dashboard should give us the option to give the full access to the users that will use the shared case or a second option that presents a simplified user interface. 

 

For example, the simplified user interface would default to displaying all the items in the data set being shared with a basic search bar which could also have the search options as currently displayed when clicking on the search option hyperlink. In other words, the simplified UI would do away with all the "facets" in the left frame or better yet, give us the option of activating the "facets" that we need in a particular case. 

 

I think that the current UI in Intella Connect is great for examiners and investigators with computing skills, but it's going to confuse and prove of little use to attorneys or other users with limited computing skills. 

 

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this? 

[ŁukaszBachman]

Hi Philrodo!

 

Thanks for sharing your feedback!

 

When I'm reading your suggestions I can't help but get the feeling that you are reading in our minds. These were the exact questions we asked ourselves a few months ago, when we did a brainstorming on Connect's final features, look and feel.

Our answer to these questions was more or less the following: let's embrace the whole power of Intella in Connect (so that our existing customers can benefit the most out of it) AND lets develop it in a way, so that it becomes even more easy and efficient reviewing platform.

We are currently at the stage where existing customers will be happy to see all of the most critical features ready. That means that we will quickly shift our minds and focus solely on making Connect simpler, faster and more intuitive. 

 

So I personally think that you and all the customers looking for efficient reviewing platform should be happy to see the direction in which Connect will be heading over a next couple of months. Also, existing customers will also be pleased to learn that transition from regular Intella into Connect is easy and quick.

 

"How will you achieve that?" - one might ask. Well, there are a few ways of doing that. We could make the UI more configurable, as you have pointed out. We can also make the UI simpler and allow users to make use of more advanced options on demand. We could also divide Connect users into groups (I believe this is one of yours suggestions as well), lets say "reviewers" and "search engineers", and create a totaly separate set of options for each of them.

We did some research and tryouts about how those options would work in real cases, but the decision which way to follow is delayed until after first release so the topic is still open. I encourage you to share your thoughts. We are confident in ourselves that we know where to go, but additional feedback is always appreciated as our number one goal for our software is to focus on user needs first!

 

Best regards,

Łukasz

[tufelkinder]

I, for one, really dislike the entire Relativity interface and platform. It's ponderously slow, clunky, and non-intuitive for new users. Plus, advanced features are frequently obscure and painful to access, and building complex searches is challenging for the new user, to say the least. As a result, in my experience, the average lawyer only learns as much as necessary to use it as a linear review tool, rarely as a powerful search platform.

 

I've been rolling out Intella Team for over a year to some of the lawyers I work with, and Intella Connect since it came out in Beta. Frankly, training lawyers who have never seen Intella to do powerful searches is substantially easier than training lawyers who have never seen Relativity/dtSearch to use those tools. Typically a 30-45 minute initial training, and then a 15-20 minute follow-up within the first week, and then I have very few questions or ongoing tech support. 

 

The appeal of releasing a tool that "looks like" Concordance or Relativity to avoid training them to use something better seems to defeat the whole point of developing a better interface in the first place. 

 

That said, philrodo's and Łukasz's comments on a more configurable interface sounds great -- I just get nervous when I hear talk about downgrading the powerful tool that has worked so well for us. :-)

[philrodo]

Walt:

 

I never meant to suggest that we should downgrade in any way Intella's search capabilities. I wholeheartedly agree with you that it's a powerful tool that works very well. I also agree with your comments about Relativity being slow and clunky, but I think it's relatively intuitive for most users. 

 

However, unlike your experience where you have been able to train attorneys to use and navigate the Intella interface, that's not usually possible for most of us that work in the private sector in civil litigations. Most attorneys in private practice are not inclined to invest in new software and even if we were to provide them with a license to the Intella viewer (or hopefully though Intella Connect when it goes live), they won't want to take the time to get trained in the use of the software, but would insist on providing them the data for review in the platform they're familiar with. And working with different law firms makes the training question more prohibitive. 

 

So the fact that the people at Vound are thinking of providing us with the tools to configure the interface in Intella Connect depending on the level of the end user, is very encouraging IMHO. In any case, I look forward to new Intella enhancements--they clearly have a stellar development crew that has given us a super product that beats the pants off all other search tools, IMHO. 

 

Best regards, Phil