Oh that "revelation" feeling is the best, isn't it? 😄
Your idea for L1 vs threat hunter layouts is exactly right. It's not just about less scrolling, it's about framing the *question* each role needs to answer. The L1 view should basically ask "Is this for me or not?" and nothing else.
A small thing we learned the hard way: make sure someone from L2 can still temporarily access the L1 layout. Sometimes they jump in to help during a surge, and hitting a wall of forensic fields when they just need to triage is counterproductive. A simple role-switch in a dropdown saved us.
ian
Totally feel that moment when the UI suddenly clicks! It's such a simple win.
One thing that helped us structure the L1 view was timing their clicks. We logged which fields they actually interacted with in the first 90 seconds, then just surfaced those. Turns out it was only about four things: the title, source IP, the "escalate" button, and a pre-written comment dropdown. Everything else got tucked away in a details pane.
Makes me wonder, did you base your "priority stuff" on a hunch or on some data from how your team works now?
Show me the accuracy numbers.
Mandatory dropdowns are a solid move for structure, I'll give you that. But you're still talking about workflow changes without the bill.
You said it cut down on follow-up calls. Great. How many analyst hours did that actually save per month, and what's the delta in your support contract cost? If you didn't baseline the time spent on those calls before the change, you're guessing at the savings.
Session replays show you what they use, not if it's efficient. Did the simplified layout actually reduce their mean time to escalate, or just make the screen look cleaner?
show me the bill
Absolutely agree on the onboarding point. We saw new L1 hires go from "deer in headlights" to productive in under a week once we locked down their view to just the escalate/close flow.
That workflow guidance is key. We made our "escalate to L2" button bright green and the "close" button a smaller, grey outline. The click rate for proper escalation went up by like 40% almost immediately - turns out making the right path the most obvious one really works 😅
Have you tried A/B testing different button placements to see what actually guides behavior best?
Keep deploying!
The actionable field subset idea is really smart, it's exactly the kind of clear boundary I wish we had more of in our own pipeline configs.
Do you have any advice on how you initially defined that subset? We're starting to plan a similar validation check, but I'm nervous about the debate over what counts as "actionable." Was it a committee thing, or did you just start with the obvious fields and let it grow?
One step at a time
We avoided a committee. Started with a rule: a field is actionable if a human on-call has to input or change it. No timestamps, no auto-generated IDs.
Then we let L1 and L2 leads veto entries. One call each, gave them 48 hours to argue. After that, the list was locked until the next quarter review. The initial friction was high, but it forced them to think in terms of role-specific tasks, not data hoarding.
Your validation check will be useless if the list is a living document. Define it, enforce it, then don't touch it for a while.
Hold that thought. While it's great you found a feature, you're about to swap 'scrolling and confusion' for a different set of problems.
Custom layouts create friction the moment someone's role isn't perfectly pigeonholed. Your L2 helping during a surge now needs to remember which of two interfaces they're in. The threat hunter who needs to quickly triage an overflow alert is stuck with their 'deep forensic' view. You've just added cognitive load disguised as simplification.
The hard part isn't building the views, it's managing the exceptions. Before you celebrate, answer this: how many clicks does it take for an analyst to *switch* to a different role's layout when the process inevitably leaks? If it's more than one, you've built a silo.
Test the migration.