How Relativity’s Aero UI Brings Simplicity to eDiscovery

Manager - Data Management and Forensics Technologies

Relativity recently released its next-generation interface, Aero UI, bringing modern design principles to eDiscovery software. Sarah Ledgerwood, Data Management and Forensic Technologies Manager at BSI, offers her top four takeaways on how Aero UI’s intuitive new features, combined with the power of the cloud, are making eDiscovery processes substantially more efficient and streamlined.

In his timeless book, The Laws of Simplicity, John Maeda waxed poetic on the intersection of design, technology, business, and life. Maeda, world-renowned graphic designer, was inspired by the first iteration of the Apple iPod and how its simple display had a profound impact on the user interface (UI) of consumer electronics. The first law of Maeda’s Simplicity is to reduce; or make technology easier to use while also letting it handle increasingly complex tasks. Specifically, Law 1 opines that “the simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.”

The applicability to the eDiscovery industry is obvious, a world not exactly known for its simplicity. If anything, complexity and eDiscovery have become synonymous and intertwined thanks to huge data volumes, expanding data types, and ballooning costs. Since the advent of electronically stored information (ESI), technologists attempted to make a concerted push for better and more modern software. So why not apply modern design principles to the eDiscovery world - an industry more than overdue for simplicity alongside its never-ending quest for efficiency? 

This leads us to the welcome introduction of RelativityOne’s new Aero UI. Relativity spent the last couple of years making a push to bring simplicity and modern design to eDiscovery with its Aero UI. The number one complaint I have heard about eDiscovery software over the years is its lack of intuitiveness for users. Although eDiscovery technology advanced leaps and bounds with the development of features and tools available to manipulate complex data sets and decrease the need for manual document review, the software often remained cumbersome to navigate with an overwhelming display of menus, links, buttons, and unclear options.

Although there is still no magic button to solve the always-evolving challenges in eDiscovery, the new Aero UI goes a long way in streamlining layouts and workflows and ultimately taking complex tasks and simplifying them. I am looking forward to fully realizing the benefits in efficiency and productivity that come from the adoption of both RelativityOne and Aero UI.