01Turning tag visibilityinto a structuredremediation loop
IKEA Content Space holds 17,200 marketing assets. A scan found only 26% of required metadata was filled — but the tool couldn't show who was responsible or let publishers fix tags in batch. I designed the management dashboard that closes that gap.
Drag to browse IKEA showroom scenes
01 — Problem Statement
6,000 metadata gaps found.
No tool to locate owners or fix them at scale.
IKEA Content Space holds 17,200 marketing assets used across global markets. Each needs 10 metadata tags to be searchable and compliant. Only 26% of tag slots were filled.
Phase 1 could surface gaps in minutes. But it stopped at a report — managers still had to track down owners manually, and publishers had to open files one by one to tag. No way to locate, assign, or batch-fix.
How might we let managers find responsible publishers and let them batch-repair metadata at scale?
Tag Coverage — Critical Fields
26% overall coverage across 123,257 tag slots. Assets without critical tags cannot be searched, filtered, or compliance-checked.
The Manager Dashboard I designed — tag coverage overview, publisher accountability ranking, and remediation tracking in one view.
02 — Role & Scope
From problem framing to working prototype, owned end-to-end.
Owned Phase 2 product design end-to-end — from workflow definition and information architecture to requirements and prototyping. No dedicated designer was on the team, so I covered the full design surface myself.
Collaborated with one frontend developer and the DAM backend team; reported into the Business Owner for prioritization and sign-off.
Constraints: limited backend change budget, no new infrastructure, and the MVP had to ship value using existing platform capabilities. That forced pragmatic decisions at every step.
Owned
Workflow definition, dual-role information architecture, PRD (v0.1), field definitions, status logic, and a working frontend prototype used for stakeholder alignment.
Collaborated
Scope negotiation with business owner, technical feasibility review with DAM backend, and metadata field alignment with compliance.
03 — Hypothesis
Why visibility alone wasn't enough
The team already had a health dashboard — it scanned all 17,200 assets and surfaced which metadata fields were missing. Coverage rates, gap counts, trend lines. The visibility problem was solved.
But knowing that gaps exist is different from knowing who should fix them. A manager sees 400 assets missing tags. Which publisher uploaded them? Which folders do they belong to? And if one publisher owns 200 files all missing the same field, should they really open each file one by one?
The Hypothesis
If we group metadata gaps by owner, show health at the folder level, and provide batch-tagging capability, teams can move from "seeing the problem" to actually resolving it at scale.
Publishers with 50+ untagged assets reported spending over 2 hours per week on manual metadata entry. A batch workflow could reduce folder-level fixes from hours to minutes.
04 — Research & Analysis
Understanding the real workflow gap
Workflow Observation
Manager exports scan results → manually identifies responsible publishers → follows up outside the product → publishers open assets one by one → update metadata → report back manually. No audit trail, no batch capability.
Data Structure Review
Mapped the metadata model behind folder hierarchy, owner assignment, and priority fields. This helped translate technical constraints into product views: overview, owner ranking, folder statistics, and owner-specific file lists.
Role Analysis
Two distinct journeys identified: Managers need an overview (which folders are worst, which publishers are behind) and assignment tools. Publishers need a focused task list (my folders, my files) and batch confirmation flows.
05 — Stakeholder Alignment
Narrowing scope to the first usable remediation loop
The broader Phase 2 direction included tag statistics, tag quality scoring, AI-powered suggestions, batch remediation, audit logs, and automated reminders. Treating all of that as one release would have made the first version too large to evaluate clearly.
Working with the business owner and technical stakeholders, we narrowed Phase 2 to the minimum viable remediation loop: overview metrics, publisher ranking, folder-level drill-down, and batch tag confirmation. AI suggestions and advanced scoring were moved to a future phase.
The product constraint was clear: the MVP had to work with existing platform capabilities and limited backend change. That pushed the design toward pragmatic decisions: start with a stable set of required metadata fields, group work by owner and folder, and make every repair action traceable.
06 — Design Process
Two roles, seven steps, one connected flow
Before landing on the dual-role structure, we explored several approaches: a single unified dashboard with filters, a Kanban-style task board, and a notification-driven push model. The dual-view approach — Manager Overview + Publisher Workspace — emerged because it mirrored the difference between oversight work and execution work.
Step 1 · Overview Dashboard
Total assets, coverage rate by core tag, trend over time. Manager's entry point.
Step 2 · Publisher Ranking
Who has the most untagged assets, sortable by volume. Identifies priority.
Step 3 · Folder Statistics
Drill into any publisher's folders to see per-folder health.
Step 4 · Assignment Action
Flag folders or files for remediation priority.
Step 5 · My Tasks
Publisher's aggregated list of folders and files assigned.
Step 6 · Batch Tagging
Select multiple files, apply metadata changes, and record how the change was made.
Step 7 · Completion Log
Write-back confirmation with timestamp and method.
The dual-role remediation workflow I designed — from problem discovery to closed-loop completion.
Key Design Decisions
Why dual roles, not one view
Managers think in portfolios and priorities; publishers think in files and folders. Separate views reduce cognitive overload. A single view with role-based filters was simpler to build but harder to use.
Batch over individual
If a folder has 200 files all needing the same tag, opening each one is 200 clicks. Folder-level batch tagging with inheritance logic reduces it to 3 clicks: select folder → choose tag → confirm.
Source tracking for every change
Every metadata modification should record its source, such as a system suggestion, manual entry, or inherited folder context. This makes later review and reliability checks possible.
Design within platform constraints
Instead of depending on a large backend rebuild, the MVP uses grouped views and stable metadata fields to make the workflow reviewable and feasible for technical sizing.
07 — Current Status
Prototype reviewed for product direction; engineering sizing pending
Phase 2 has a working frontend prototype demonstrating the proposed dual-role flow. It was used to align the remediation model, scope the MVP, and support review discussions with business and technical stakeholders. Final implementation scope and release timing still depend on engineering assessment.
| Deliverable | Status |
|---|---|
| Frontend prototype | Complete for product review |
| PRD draft (v0.1) | Written; v1.0 review pending |
| Required metadata mapping | Aligned for MVP discussion |
| Engineering effort estimate | Pending technical assessment |
| Next-phase priority | Under discussion |
08 — Conclusion
From visibility to accountability
Phase 1 proved that scanning asset health was valuable. Phase 2 reframed the next product question: visibility without workflow is just a prettier spreadsheet. The remediation loop does not simply add more data. It defines what happens after data surfaces a problem.
Lessons Learned
Workflow design > dashboard design. Adding charts doesn't solve operational problems. The shift from “show the data better” to “make the next action obvious” changed the entire product direction.
Role separation reduces cognitive load. When one interface serves both oversight and execution, neither works well. Separate views make each experience focused.
Batch operations unlock adoption. If fixing one asset takes 2 minutes and you have 800 to fix, nobody will do it voluntarily. Batch workflows reduce effort enough that compliance becomes realistic.