Defining a New Search Flow: Searching From Specific Map Components
Role: Designer, collaborating with 2 engineers
Context: Paces is a software that allows green energy developers identify the best places to build and manage projects. Developers can generate a portfolio of potential land parcels based on specific criteria, or upload their own data sets to work with.
Task: Create a search flow to allow users to run a search query based off of specific map components.
Here’s what I came up with:
So how’d we get there? First for some context...
The Problem: There’s no way to build a custom map-based search
Customers had demonstrated the need for being able to run a search while targeting specific grid components, for example, a particular three phase line. A hacky flow was cobbled together by some engineers, but they wanted to expand this functionality to include selecting multiple different elements to perform a search, and exploring other possible entrypoints. Other Entrypoints: Accessing the map from the search flow
The main other entrypoint the team and I decided to explore was accessing the map from within the search flow. Currently users can copy and paste the name of the specific lines or subs, but this requires having a second tab open or other external steps.
The way the Grid Preferences page of the search flow is set up, each filter can be turned on or off. The main exploration I wanted to take on here was deciding whether the “Search from Map” button should be an overarching flow for all the possible filters, or should be more hidden within each filter.
After initially weighing the options, it seemed like it would make sense to have an overarching “Search From Map” button rather than to create a choppy flow of having to individually turn on a filter, go to the map to select specific components, return to the search page, then repeat that all over again for the next filter. To confirm my suspicions, I created user flows for the two options to fully compare and confirm my instinct.
Display UI For multiple selected items:
Having settled on an entrypoint within the search flow, I wanted to explore different UI options for seeing which items have been selected, and have an easy access place to manage these selections.
After consulting with the team, we decided to go with option 1, to maximize the map space.