01, Research & discovery

OrganisationHanson Wade

Beacon Intelligence

Keeping scientific evidence within reach

Connecting scientific questions to traceable evidence. A programme, its development stage and the sources behind it belong to the same question, so the design keeps those relationships visible while moving between a landscape and a single programme.

Product design · Research intelligence interface · Figma design and prototype

Project brief

About

Beacon Intelligence brings drug programmes, study information and scientific references into a connected research workspace. The project focused on moving from a therapeutic landscape to the evidence behind an individual programme.

Problem

The design challenge was to make complex scientific relationships easier to explore while preserving the population, endpoint and source context needed to interpret a result.

Objective

Create a coherent path from landscape exploration and search to programme comparison and source inspection.

How the interfaces support the task

Desktop research workspace: Explore the therapeutic landscape, build a query, compare programmes and inspect the population, endpoint and source behind a result with related information visible together.

Mobile evidence view: Read a focused evidence record and its provenance, then return to the programme. The smaller layout gives evidence its own page instead of compressing the desktop panel.

Together: Both views serve the same research question. Mobile focuses on evidence inspection; desktop provides the wider research workspace.

Scope, work needed

Information architecture for programmes, studies, references and saved research
Landscape, dossier, comparison, search and evidence compositions
Evidence and source states, including linked, pending and unavailable sources
Reusable evidence, source and stage components with an inspectable variable set
Desktop and 390 × 844 mobile evidence adaptation
An interactive Figma prototype covering the core research scenarios

Personas

Competitive-intelligence analyst
TaskCompare a therapeutic landscape and the programmes inside it, and see where a programme sits against its peers.
Design responseThe landscape and comparison views hold stage, modality and evidence status side by side so differences read without reassembly.
Clinical-development user
TaskInspect the study population behind a result and judge how far the evidence goes.
Design responseThe dossier keeps population, endpoint and source in one reading path, and states the limits of a result beside it.
Translational scientist
TaskConnect reference science (target, modality, structure) to the clinical evidence for a programme.
Design responseReference records, chemistry and evidence share one object model, so moving between science and study data keeps context.

Design personas · Portrait · Gustavo Fring / Pexels; Portrait · Jrfotosgrand Fotografia / Pexels; Portrait · Gustavo Fring / Pexels.

Our contribution

Information architecture for the research workspace, defining programmes, studies, references and saved research as connected objects with the relationships between them.

Interaction design for the landscape, dossier, comparison and query experiences, including evidence and source states so a reader can see what is linked, pending or unavailable.

Reusable interface patterns for evidence badges, source controls and stage indicators, carried through desktop and mobile layouts in an inspectable Figma design file.

An interactive prototype covering the path from landscape exploration through to programme detail and source inspection.

Design narrative

01Organise the research around connected objects

The programme is the organising object. A study, a reference compound and an evidence record all attach to it, so navigation, dossier tabs and evidence overlays resolve back to the same structure.

That structure is what keeps context intact. When a reader opens a study or a source, the population, endpoint and programme it belongs to travel with it instead of being rebuilt from memory.

Programme dossier, profile, therapeutic intelligence and the route into study evidence.

Programme and study values are illustrative prototype data, and the illustration is explanatory rather than a measured structure.

02Keep the programme in context

The landscape places programmes against target and development stage. Selecting one reveals an entry to its dossier.

The design intent is continuity: the researcher should be able to move from a landscape question to programme detail without having to rebuild what they selected.

Beacon competitive landscape headed 'Understand the competitive field.', with disease area, target, modality and stage filters, a target-by-stage scatter, a DEMO-BS01 hover card and a programme table beneath. — Landscape, programmes read against target and development stage, with a route into the dossier.

Beacon advanced query builder with a readable research query combining oncology, bispecific modality and phase, a run-query action, save query and a single synthetic result row. — Advanced query, precision without losing readability, and a saved-research path.

03Compare without implying a ranking

Comparison aligns mechanism, stage and endpoint context side by side, and states where an endpoint is not reported or not comparable rather than filling the gap.

The shared schematic is explanatory, so the reader compares attributes rather than being handed a ranking the data does not support.

Beacon comparison headed 'Difference, in the detail.', showing three synthetic programmes side by side with modality, stage, objective response, adverse events and explicit not-reported, not-applicable and discontinued states. — Comparison, aligned attributes, with missing and non-comparable states stated plainly.

04Keep the clinical course visible

The clinical timeline places dated CT images alongside the treatment sequence, so a reader can follow a published case over time without losing its context or its source.

Published single-case imaging from Cekay et al. (2023), shown as a literature reference. Other programme and study values in the prototype are illustrative.

Beacon clinical timeline for osimertinib showing five dated CT images across 2021 and 2022 aligned to a treatment and response timeline, with source attribution beneath. — Clinical timeline, a published single case read across dated imaging and treatment events.
Published single-case imaging from Cekay et al. (2023), shown as a literature reference. Other programme and study values in the prototype are illustrative.
© Cekay et al., 2023 · Frontiers in Oncology · Figure 2 · Read source · CC BY 4.0

Beacon molecular intelligence page for osimertinib with a 3D structure viewer, 3D, 2D and space-fill controls, a compound properties panel and separate routes to compound source and clinical context. — Molecular reference, structure and clinical evidence kept as separate, traceable sources.
The reference compound is public; the structure view is computed reference geometry, not a binding pose.

05Make uncertainty visible beside the result

The evidence view keeps denominator, population, provenance and missing information beside the result. A missing source is shown as missing rather than quietly omitted.

The information design is the point of the example. On mobile, evidence becomes a focused page with a clear route back to the programme.

Beacon study outcomes page headed 'The result is only the beginning.', with objective response and adverse event cards, a participant dot matrix, a safety table, an evidence and provenance panel and a follow-the-claim trace beneath. — Study outcomes, denominator, population, provenance and what is missing, beside the number.

Beacon mobile evidence page showing a synthetic-demo badge, an objective response figure with population, endpoint and confidence-interval context, a demonstration-data disclosure and a route back to the programme. — Mobile evidence, a focused page that keeps the disclosure and the way back.

06Build the rules into reusable pieces

Evidence badges, source controls, stage indicators and programme patterns carry the same meanings across the interface. The variables and attached instances in the design file make those rules inspectable.

Fixed scientific compositions, such as the molecular reference views, sit alongside the reusable structure where the content is specific rather than repeatable.

Beacon evidence state components: synthetic demo, source linked, evidence pending and source unavailable badges. — Evidence states, one vocabulary for synthetic, linked, pending and unavailable sources.
Reusable components and fixed scientific compositions, with partial token coverage.

Beacon information architecture summary covering the product map, object relationships, content hierarchy, decisions and recovery states, and flow connections. — Information architecture, programme as the organising object.
Structure and data contracts for the product. Not an implemented schema.

Beacon antibody–drug conjugate lens for trastuzumab deruxtecan, with antibody, linker and payload layer tabs, an explanatory antibody illustration, a selected-layer panel and target, linker and payload facts. — Modality lens, architecture layers with the selected layer explained beside the illustration.
The reference compound is public; the illustration is explanatory and colour does not encode conjugation sites.

07What was delivered

An editable research interface design covering landscape, search, dossier, comparison and evidence, with desktop and mobile compositions.

An interactive Figma prototype that carries the reader from a landscape question through to a programme and its sources.

Systems & responsive

Design system

The design works from a single variable set spanning reference values, semantic meaning, density and prototype state, with navigation, header and evidence patterns built from shared components. Density modes control information compression; they are not light and dark themes.

Responsive behaviour

Desktop keeps a contextual evidence panel beside the programme. At 390 × 844 the evidence becomes its own page, with a prominent route back to the programme and a visible sample-data disclosure. Tablet, filter and compare layouts follow the same rules.

Prototype

Beacon prototype walkthrough

Research intelligence walkthrough

Desktop research workspace, recorded end to end. Mobile evidence screens appear in the gallery and the design file.

4:25

Explore the competitive landscape, compare programmes, inspect study evidence and trace molecular and clinical references back to their sources.

Recorded prototype walkthroughs with illustrative data.

The prototype demonstrates the research path and its evidence states. It is an interactive design, so there is no live dataset, query engine or saved-research service behind it.

Figma design file Figma prototype

Gallery

21 images

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Intelligence home, the landscape, an approval watch list and a review queue in one entry point.

Programme records shown here are illustrative prototype data, and no probability-of-approval scores are presented.

Project notes

A short set of notes on the material shown in the screens.

Published single-case imaging from Cekay et al. (2023) is shown as a literature reference, with attribution kept visible wherever the figure appears.
Other programme, study and outcome values shown in the screens are illustrative prototype data.

Takeaway & evaluation

Complex research stays usable when the programme acts as the organising object and every study or reference keeps its population, endpoint and source context attached.

Outcome metrics not available.

What to measure

Proposed evaluation, not conducted research.

Can a researcher find a specific programme from the landscape and reach its dossier without losing the comparison context they started from?
Can they interpret a result with its source beside it, and tell the difference between documented evidence and missing evidence?