1. The Core Problem: Overwhelmed by Power, Starved for Guidance

Many security platforms are built to be powerful, boasting features from wallet forensics to behavioural anomaly detection. But immense capability, on its own, does not make a product effective.

When I worked on Sentinel Protocol, an investigation platform used by law enforcement teams worldwide, the raw capability was there. But investigators were getting buried in graphs, tables, and unstructured outputs — all powerful, yet hard to act on. The challenge wasn’t adding more; it was making what mattered immediately usable.

2. The Shift in Approach: Making Clarity the Default

I started by studying how real investigators worked — what they needed to see first, where they hesitated, and how they moved from signal to decision.

We focused the design around a key question: “What should the user do next?”
Instead of displaying everything at once, the interface guided users step by step:

• Key wallet clusters were surfaced first, with clear visual emphasis

• Deeper data unfolded as needed, not all at once

• A case summary generator helped investigators document findings without losing momentum

This didn’t just improve usability — it led to a measurable reduction in time spent per investigation, in some cases by up to 40%.

3. Chainkeeper: A Smarter Way to Interact with Data

Later, we integrated Chainkeeper, an AI assistant. It was designed from the ground up to work as a context-aware partner within the platform.

Instead of responding to generic, open-ended prompts, Chainkeeper understood what the user was looking at. An analyst examining a complex transaction graph could ask:

• "Are there mixers in this specific path?"

• "Highlight addresses in this cluster that show unusual behavior."

• "Generate a case summary based on the activity I've selected."

Crucially, by constraining its knowledge to the visible data on the screen, we eliminated the risk of AI hallucinations—a non-negotiable requirement when dealing with evidence. The assistant provided relevant, structured answers tied directly to the investigation, giving analysts a significant head start.

4. My Guiding Design Principles

Throughout this process, a few core principles became our guide for every design decision. These aren't just theories; they are practical rules for designing high-stakes systems.

• Prioritize context over raw complexity. Your first job is to show the right information at the right time, not everything all at once. Guide the user's attention to what matters most.

• Ensure every action moves the user forward. Never leave a user at a dead end. Every feature and piece of information should have a clear purpose that leads to the next logical step in their task.

• Build trust through structure. When a user feels that the interface is clear, orderly, and predictable, they extend that confidence to the data itself. A clear layout fosters confident judgment.

Books like Simple and Usable by Giles Colborne helped shape the system-level thinking, but it was Tragic Design by Shariat and Saucier that reinforced the essential truth: poor UX in critical systems doesn't just break a task—it can cause real-world harm.Closing Thought

Closing Thought

This work was never about making the interface look sleek or chasing design trends. It was about empowering serious professionals to move faster, act with greater certainty, and trust their tools in moments where hesitation is not an option.

In security, design isn’t about making things pretty. It’s about making decisions feel safe, fast, and deliberate.