MERIDIAN
Sovereign intelligence platform for multi-agency deployments
Designed the complete interface system for a SOVEREIGN intelligence platform serving civil intelligence agencies, military J2 commands, law enforcement directorates, and cyber investigation units — all from a single deployment. The core challenge was making one product feel native to four operational cultures.
One platform, multiple institutional realities
Most enterprise platforms are built for one type of user, one workflow, and one organizational context. MERIDIAN needed to feel purpose-built for civil intelligence, military command, law enforcement, and cyber investigation without fragmenting into four separate products.
The client required a single unified intelligence platform replacing a fragmented ecosystem of case management systems, geospatial tools, analyst workstations, and reporting applications. The platform had to preserve procedural and legal differences between deployments while enabling shared technical infrastructure.
Research
User and organizational research established divergent workflows, legal constraints, and decision authorities across four personas—this framed persona-driven IA and feature priorities.
Synthesis
Affinity mapping and task analysis surfaced shared patterns and unique needs, guiding which modules would be persona-conditional versus universally available.
Ideation
Sketches and low-fi flows explored persona-first navigation, login persona selector concepts, and the Reality Canvas mental model for persistent investigation.
Prototyping
Interactive prototypes validated map-first interactions, Agent Theater layouts, and Why-Trace layered disclosure for AI explainability.
Testing
Iterative usability tests refined persona flows, clarified compliance visibility, and tuned density for long analytic sessions.
Delivery
Component handoffs and detailed interaction specs supported engineering implementation of persona-conditional rendering and complex canvas interactions.
Director General / J2 Chief
Requires synthesized national situational awareness, decision queue visibility, and concise authorization flow. Needs answers in under a few minutes without digging into operational detail.
Senior Intelligence Analyst
Core power user who builds cases, runs AI agents, constructs patterns, and authors briefs. Needs a persistent investigative workspace that supports long sessions.
Intelligence Officer
Handles assigned cases, validates matches, and escalates findings. Requires clear clearance boundaries and inline compliance visibility.
System Administrator
Manages users, approvals, and audit logs. Needs governance tools that prioritize operational hygiene and prevent compliance gaps.
One platform, four institutional cultures
Navigation, terminology, and permissions must adapt per persona without fragmenting the product.
AI explainability as a legal requirement
Every AI claim must surface a traceable reasoning chain with source citations and compliance context.
Persistent investigative workspace
Analysts need multi-session continuity: live agents, persistent context, and non-destructive exploration tools.
Compliance is inline, not an afterthought
Legal and clearance indicators must be visible at the point of action, not appended as modal checks.
Pattern building for domain experts
Visual pattern tools must translate to plain language and run at scale without requiring data science skills.
Role determines reality
Persona-driven views make each role feel purpose-built while sharing underlying infrastructure.
The AI works for the analyst
AI outputs are transparent and require human gating for high-impact decisions.
Compliance is context
Inline legal signals and clearance badges reduce accidental authorization errors.
Investigation has depth
Persistent canvases, low visual-noise design, and session continuity support long investigations.
These screens are the operational expression of the IA hierarchy above. They show how the four core zones — Command, Investigate, Operate, and Manage — translate into the product workflows users rely on.
Key screens that define MERIDIAN
Strategic Overview
Provides a synthesized national situational awareness view for senior leaders. The DG uses this screen to review the National Threat Index, authorization queue, and high‑priority operational briefs — enabling decisions in under four minutes without leaving the overview.
Reality Canvas
The persistent investigative workspace where analysts build cases across Map, Graph, Timeline, Voice, and Crypto lenses. Context persists across sessions while live AI agents surface relevant matches.
Pattern Lab
A visual, node-and-edge pattern builder that lets domain experts compose complex temporal and spatial detection rules without code. Matches translate to plain language and update live as the pattern is tuned.
Agent Theater
Orchestrates specialized agents in parallel and exposes each agent's activity, outputs, and compliance posture. The three-column layout (Planner, Reasoning, Gated) makes autonomous vs. human‑gated activity visually explicit.
Component System & Tokens
Dark base, persona accent tokens, clearance typographic treatments, confidence bars, and rating badges form the visual language across modules.
Login persona selector
We chose explicit persona selection at login to avoid ambiguous context inference — improves safety and reduces accidental cross-persona actions.
Artifacts
Persona matrices, IA specs, interaction flows, component library, prototype links, and test scripts were delivered alongside design tokens.
Handoff
Component handoffs included interaction specs for Pattern Lab, Why-Trace, and Reality Canvas to ensure consistent behavior across implementations.
Unified platform
Adapted interfaces reduced training friction and preserved organizational doctrines across deployments.
Faster investigations
Persistent canvases and live agents shortened time-to-insight across common case workflows.
Next steps: validate cross-persona handoffs and run usability tests for Pattern Lab and non-linear Brief Composer workflows.