Indianapolis Metropoliton Police Department (IMPD)
Context
Founded in 2020, Team Monocles is shakin up crime-solving with AI. Partnering with IMPD, they helped revive a decades-old cold case in 2024 — proving that innovation, AI, and digital collaboration can give justice a second shot. This design project was brought to us by Ron Brumbarger, the founder of Team Monocles, to explore how we might help detectives in their day-to-day work.
Tools used
Role
UI/UX Designer
Homicide investigations gene-rate massive amounts of information: evidence, leads, notes. Detectives often reply on memory, intuition & handwritten records to identify & prioritize suspects. Among all this data, video evidence stands out as especially overwhelming. Detectives often face hundreds of hours of surveillance and body cam footage with no efficient way to filter, search, or highlight what actually matters.
This means valuable time is lost manually reviewing long videos, and critical details risk being overlooked.
Our goal was to design an AI-powered tool to help detectives cut through the noise and surface the moments that matter most.
Research And Insights
We kicked off by exploring current trends and the surge in surveillance footage across Indianapolis, capturing our findings in FigJam. Next, we interviewed four detectives from IMPD to dig deeper into real-world challenges. Using these insights, we built a persona, created an affinity map, and highlighted key themes. Finally, we ran a quick competitive analysis to see how existing tools compare to what we envisioned.
Key Takeaways From Interview
1. Overwhelming volume & slow processing of evidence due to backlogs.
2. After 15–20 minutes of watching footage, fatigue sets in and key details can be missed.
3. AI seen as promising but trust and accuracy are concerns.
4.Detectives do not want to waste time in learning new technology or system. The design should be simple and easy to navigate
Affinity Mapping
After talking to users and gathering research, we created an affinity map to organize and identify key problem areas.
Meet Detective Hurt
A homicide investigator at IMPD.He represents hundreds of investigators buried in digital evidence.He wants to find critical moments, and reduce the risk of missing something important due to fatigue.
Ideation & Process - LowFi
User Feedback and Concern from Low Fi Testing
To validate our design, we used the Think Aloud Method. We guided her screen by screen asking after each flow: “What are your thoughts? Is this helpful in real workflows? Would you trust it in an actual case?”
Final Design & Rationale
Based on user feedback, we moved forward with the high-fidelity design. Watch this prototype video for a detailed walkthrough of its features.
Usability test feedback
We tested our system with three detectives from IMPD and here's what they had to say about our designs.
Summary
RedThread helps those who keep us safe by streamlining investigations to be faster, smarter, and more effective. The crucial clue is often already in the footage — you simply need the right tool to reveal it.
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