Search - Design Case Study

Modernized search user experience designed with the Coveo framework leveraging out of the box components and dynamic filtering to deliver fast, personalized results. With features like query suggestions, contextual facets, and usage analytics, Coveo enhances usability while continuously improving search accuracy and engagement.

Hero image

Search - Design Case Study

Modernized search user experience designed with the Coveo framework leveraging out of the box components and dynamic filtering to deliver fast, personalized results. With features like query suggestions, contextual facets, and usage analytics, Coveo enhances usability while continuously improving search accuracy and engagement.

Hero image

Search - Design Case Study

Modernized search user experience designed with the Coveo framework leveraging out of the box components and dynamic filtering to deliver fast, personalized results. With features like query suggestions, contextual facets, and usage analytics, Coveo enhances usability while continuously improving search accuracy and engagement.

Hero image

Search - Design Case Study

Modernized search user experience designed with the Coveo framework leveraging out of the box components and dynamic filtering to deliver fast, personalized results. With features like query suggestions, contextual facets, and usage analytics, Coveo enhances usability while continuously improving search accuracy and engagement.

Hero image

Understanding the legacy experience

Search is often the first step in a user's journey through Intel.com, whether they’re looking for drivers, technical documentation, developer tools, or product support. However, the legacy Search experience fell short in delivering relevant results, intuitive filters and a modern interface. This case study outlines how we redesigned Intel’s site-wide search to provide faster, smarter and more accessible discovery across Intel’s vast content ecosystem.

Poor relevance and ranking

Users often found outdated or irrelevant results for common queries. Too many results were gated and required the user to log in.

Lack of intuitive filters

The filtering system was inconsistent across device types and missing critical options many users were looking for.

Disjointed experience

Search results looked and functioned differently across different parts of the site, creating confusion and inconsistency.

No support for modern search behaviors

The legacy Search experience lacked many features our users were looking for such as highly personalized results, intuitive filters and possibility for AI generated answers.

Disjointed experience

Search results looked and functioned differently across different parts of the site, creating confusion and inconsistency.

No support for modern search behaviors

The legacy Search experience lacked many features our users were looking for such as highly personalized results, intuitive filters and possibility for AI generated answers.

The goal: Build a user-centered MVP

Our goal was to launch an MVP experience that could unify the search experience across Intel.com while delivering smarter results, more usable filters and a scalable design. We wanted to meet immediate usability goals while laying the groundwork for future personalization, AI integration and content tagging improvements.

Discovery & planning

We began by auditing the existing experience and gathering both qualitative and quantitative data. From this research, we defined key design principles: Findability, consistency, responsiveness and scalability.

Stakeholder Input

We worked with marketing, product, engineering and content teams to understand business requirements and performance expectations.

Search Data Analysis

By reviewing user queries, we identified top search intents and gaps in existing results. Our new card design addressed these issues.

Competitive Benchmarking

We looked at how our competition handled support routing and contact entry points.

Platform evaluation

We confirmed that the new experience would be built on the Coveo search platform utilizing the standard out-of-the-box Coveo Atomic Library components.

Competitive Benchmarking

We looked at how our competition handled support routing and contact entry points.

Platform evaluation

We confirmed that the new experience would be built on the Coveo search platform utilizing the standard out-of-the-box Coveo Atomic Library components.

UX design process

The UX design process for creating a new Search experience started with analyzing user behavior and feedback to uncover key frustrations and unmet needs. We then designed and tested a new interface with improved filters, relevance tuning and a more intuitive layout to help users find information faster and more confidently.

Wireframing

We created low fidelity wireframes to explore new interaction models, information architecture, entry point consolidation and overall connectivity.

Smart Search Box: Included type-ahead, synonym recognition and suggested queries to help users refine their searches in real-time.

Clear filters: Designed a responsive filter panel with faceted navigation, sortable by relevance, date, or content type.

Unified layout: Created a single search results template that could scale across different verticals (Support, Newsroom, Documentation, etc.).

Search state handling: Designed for various scenarios, including zero results, partial matches and simple error recovery.

Visual Design

Leveraging the modern Coveo Atomic Library and our Atomic Design System standards, we created a clean, user-focused experience:

Responsive design: We used our standard breakpoints including desktop, tablet and mobile all while creating modular results cards and visual cues for content type.

Responsive and accessible filter controls: This helped users understand choices and next steps across all breakpoints without degrading the user experience.

Wide range of results: Created a large collection of card configurations to accommodate all content types, user expectations and business needs.

Accessibility

We conducted a full, thorough WCAG 2.1 compliance review, with features like:

ARIA labels and semantic HTML.

Keyboard navigation support.

Screen reader testing to ensure all users can navigate the experience.

Sufficient contrast and focus indicators

Documentation

To streamline development and remain consistent with the design, we created robust documentation including:

UX specifications for all viewports and interaction states.

Search behavior definitions for filters, sorting and all result types.

Error messaging, fallback logic and UX copy for empty states.

Integration notes for the Coveo backend and analytics tracking.

Accessibility

We conducted a full, thorough WCAG 2.1 compliance review, with features like:

ARIA labels and semantic HTML.

Keyboard navigation support.

Screen reader testing to ensure all users can navigate the experience.

Sufficient contrast and focus indicators

Documentation

To streamline development and remain consistent with the design, we created robust documentation including:

UX specifications for all viewports and interaction states.

Search behavior definitions for filters, sorting and all result types.

Error messaging, fallback logic and UX copy for empty states.

Integration notes for the Coveo backend and analytics tracking.

Takeaways

Redesigning Intel's site-wide Search experience was more than just a visual update, it was a strategic transformation of how users discover content across a massive content ecosystem. Through thoughtful planning, modular design and a close collaboration with engineering and content teams, we delivered a powerful MVP experience that improved the legacy experience and built the foundation for Search innovation tomorrow.

Together, let's have some fun and create something great.

© Kevin Shalkowsky 2025 - All rights reserved

© Kevin Shalkowsky 2025 - All rights reserved

Together, let's have some fun and create something great.