Designed a scientific social platform from concept to launch

Publed is a scientific social platform designed to help researchers publish, organize, and collaborate around different forms of knowledge: papers, datasets, code, videos, and presentations.

Through user research, I mapped how different users created, published, and discovered this content. This helped us define the platform’s core concepts and structure the experience around real research workflows.

Turning a complex publishing process into a simple flow

One of the biggest UX challenges was publishing a Knowledge Object, Publed’s format for packaging and sharing scientific work. A Knowledge Object could contain different types of content, multiple files, external links, collaborators, metadata, and publishing settings. Users could also create one independently or as part of a larger workspace.

The challenge was figuring out how much information to ask for, in what order, and which steps should be required versus optional.

Early explorations showed that putting every option into one flow made publishing unnecessarily heavy, especially for users who simply wanted to upload and share their work.

I explored different structures for the flow, separating essential information from advanced configuration and testing different ways of grouping files, metadata, collaborators, and publishing settings.

The final approach kept the primary path focused while allowing users with more complex research to add additional information when needed.

The resulting multi-step flow progressively introduced information instead of asking for everything upfront. Users could upload their work first, categorize it, add the necessary details, preview the Knowledge Object, and publish — with more advanced options available when needed.

Knowledge network

Publishing was only one part of the experience. Users could discover research, follow authors, explore different disciplines, collaborate through workspaces, and navigate the different artifacts that made up a piece of research.