Designing Clarity: Visualizing 10M+ Papers & Patents

Cypris is a research platform that centralizes global innovation data—spanning patents, academic papers, company news, and research organizations—for R&D professionals. When Robin Ahn joined as Cypris’ first and only in-house product designer, the platform had no unified design system, lacked visual hierarchy, and struggled to handle the growing influx of structured and unstructured data. Robin was tasked with reimagining the product from the ground up, working closely with engineers, analysts, and stakeholders to transform it into an intuitive, accessible, and AI-powered workspace.

At the time, Cypris was importing over 10 million new research papers and expanding its global patent dataset, prompting the need for new interfaces that could visualize complex legal metadata such as patent families, legal events, citations, and global assignees. Robin led design research and built a new visual hierarchy for this data, working with industry professionals to define what mattered most to users in each domain.

She also introduced a Lucene-based Advanced Search experience that allowed users to construct precise Boolean queries tailored to each dataset (e.g., search papers by DOI and patents by application date). This was paired with real-time query feedback, inline help, and an intuitive builder UI—opening up complex functionality to both experts and casual users.

Beyond search, Robin overhauled the user dashboard, making it easier to navigate, discover platform features, and engage with personalized research assets like Saved Searches, Flagged Collections, and AI-generated Reports. She designed new side panels, interactions, cards, and accessibility-focused improvements—shifting the platform from rigid, developer-led layouts into a dynamic design system built with intention and scalability in mind.

A particularly complex project was the complete redesign of Monitoring, a core feature that emails users patent and research updates. Robin simplified its setup flow, redesigned the email experience, and created structured dashboards that allowed users to track legal events, citations, and AI-tracked trends—all built on feedback from enterprise clients.

Her work elevated Cypris into a world-class research product, supporting enterprise R&D workflows at scale.