interaction design

Sites Page Redesign

Verkada - Physical Security Platform

Project Background

Verkada provides enterprise physical security solutions, including video surveillance, door access control, air quality monitoring, alarms, intercoms, and visitor management system.

‍The Sites page—a tool for organizing devices and managing user permissions—plays a critical role in shaping the overall platform user experience. It was unscalable, spreadsheet-like interface that lacked usability, especially on mobile.

My goal was to redesign it into a clean, intuitive, and scalable solution that enhances efficiency, accessibility, and the overall ease of managing security infrastructure.

What is Site?

Sites offer a structured way to organize devices, making it easier for users to find, monitor, and manage them. Typically, devices within the same physical location are grouped into a site, creating a logical hierarchy.
‍
For example, in a school district, each school would be a site, while individual floors could be nested as sub-sites, allowing for more granular organization and control.

Why redesign?

Not usable on mobile 📱

  • Admins rely on the Sites page for multiple use cases, making mobile usability a necessity rather than a convenience.
  • By 2023, users expect SaaS platforms to support core functions on mobile, and the existing experience fell short of that standard.

Not scalable 🫷🏼

  • Each time Verkada launched a new product, a new column was added to the Sites page. This approach became unmanageable as the product ecosystem grew.
  • Some products were missing, preventing a unified view of all devices under a site.

Not aligned with Verkada 3.0 💅🏻

The Sites page looked outdated and didn’t reflect the refined aesthetics of Verkada’s latest design system. It needed a visual and structural update to stay consistent.

Research

Research Process & Outcomes

  • UX Audit – Identified usability issues in the existing design
  • Hypothesis Development – Defined key assumptions to validate
  • Research Questions – Focused inquiries to guide the redesign
  • Low-Fi Sketches – Early explorations of design concepts
  • Stakeholder Interviews – Gathered internal perspectives
  • Design Interviews – Aligned with past design decisions and team insights
  • Interviews with Solutions Engineers – to understand real-world customer use cases, particularly in large enterprises.
  • Customer Interviews – Uncovered real user stories, needs, and pain points
www.designsquiggle.com

Research Questions

  • Key Jobs To Be Done – What are the main jobs users accomplish on the Sites page?
  • Usability Issues – What obstacles make the current design difficult to use?
  • Opportunities – Could the Sites page serve a greater purpose?
  • Prioritization – What elements are unnecessary and could be removed or hidden?

Learnings

Key Jobs To Be Done 💼

Org Admins and Site Admins use the Sites page primarily to structure and restructure sites. Their key tasks include:

  • Creating Sites & Subsites
  • Naming & Renaming Sites
  • Restructuring Sites, such as:
    • Breaking down a site into multiple subsites
    • Moving a subsite under a different site
  • Viewing & Managing User Permissions

Usability Issues 😖

  • Cumbersome Restructuring – Users must remove all devices and subsites before deleting a site, making the process tedious.
  • Disjointed Workflow – Restructuring requires switching between multiple pages to move devices and manage permissions.
  • No Bulk Actions – Users must make changes one by one, adding to the frustration.

Insight Evidences 👀

Designers who previously worked on Sites page recommended to make changing the structure of the sites easier.

I don’t know why but one of the largest customers move about 10 subsites to another site every year.-Loren Garby, Solutions Engineering Manager

A customer who experienced frustration restructuring their sites requested ability to drag and drop to move sites (and  subsites) at a customer conference.

The ability to move a nested site out of the tree. Changing hierarchy of sites without having to delete the site and re-creating in. This is so that users wouldn’t have to re-add all devices and reset configurations.
- Alex Hsieh, Software Engineer

Joel (Solutions Engineer) is writing custom script for an enterprise customer with 700+ sites to assist them changing the structure of their sites.

We see cases where customers set up their site structure in one way, then they learn more about how things work, and then  they change the structure. Think about how they can easily move devices between sites, also moving the permissions.
- John, VP Design

Naming conventions are very important for us. We iterated naming conventions and site structure multiple times.
- IT Director, REC

Device count has importance. When structuring and restructuring the sites, it is helpful to see how many and what type of devices are in the site.
- Victor, Principal designer

I had a customer who reached out to me asking for help to restructure their sites because they just couldn't figure it out.
- Derrick - Solutions Engineer

Additional Findings ✨

  • Potential as a Home Page – Verkada currently defaults to the Camera page as the home screen, the Sites page could evolve into a true homepage, providing an overview of all sites, critical insights, and navigation.
  • Adding Floorplan – Floorplans are site based. Adding floor plan integration would enhance site management.
  • Ability to pin site – For those managing many sites, the ability to pin or star important sites at the top would improve efficiency.
  • Site Data Export – Users need to export site data for security and compliance reporting.

Exploration

Prioritization

Explored 3 different options for immediate visibility for the sites  because making site management easy meant different things for different people.

Layout Exploration

Explored 3 different options for immediate visibility for the sites  because making site management easy meant different things for different people.

Panel View
Expanded List View
Toggle View (Panel & List)

Final Design

Explored 3 different options for immediate visibility for the sites  because making site management easy meant different things for different people.

Outcome

  • ✅ Responsive on mobile 📱
  • ✅ Scalable design 🙌🏻
  • ✅ Aligned with current design system 💅🏻
  • ✅ Easy to view and edit user permissions 😌
  • ✅ Easier to change the site structure 😌

Additional updates & Constraints

  • Bandwidth Settings Added – Introduced mid-project as a new requirement.
  • Drag & Drop Rejected – Denied due to technical limitations.
  • Bulk Actions Not Supported – Limited back-end engineering resources prevented implementation.
  • Duplicate Function Backlogged – Feature to copy sites/subsites with the same permissions was added to the backlog.

Next Project

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Coming soon
Verkada Sites page