Adam Rotmil
Government innovation

Vulcan

From mission need to technical possibility.

Client
Cylitix / DoD (SOCOM)
Role
Product designer
Duration
2 months
Platform
Web
Inside the product

Drawn from the original Focus Areas design: its own question, answers and routes.

Summary

A mission need is only the beginning. The call has to translate it into questions an innovator can answer, and evidence a government team can evaluate.

My role

Product designer on the authoring side: how a program manager asks for the right information, and who can work on the call. Technical branching, structured costs and milestones, and controlled collaboration.

The platform

Connecting government needs with commercial innovation.

Vulcan is an innovation platform built for Cylitix with sponsorship from the Department of Defense. It modernizes the Broad Agency Announcement: how agencies like SOCOM issue calls for capabilities, and how commercial innovators respond with proposals and technical demonstrations.

Calls involve stakeholders across government organizations, and the responses span very different technical domains. The platform keeps them structured, searchable and evaluable.

From need to response

A call is written once and answered many ways.

A program manager authors the call. Each innovator answers along the route their technical focus sets. The government team scouts for matches and evaluates the responses.

Author
Answer
Scout & evaluate
Problem StatementThe need the call is written around.
The Focus Areas question in the original form builder, each answer with its own routeCustom Questions
Who can manage this call: inviting editors from across government organizationsAccess Controls
The call’s outlineOverview, Problem Statement, Tags & Keywords, Engagement Objectives, Eligibility, Submission Deadlines, Visual Artifacts, Government References, Compliance Certification, Security Clearances, Citizenship/Ownership, ROM Cost Estimate, Technical Specs, Custom Requirements, Access Controls, Review & Submit
Review & SubmitSteps that need attention are flagged in the outline.
Focus AreasWhat is your primary area of focus?
Machine LearningWhich of these do you have experience with?
Its own sectionCommunications, Robotics and Computer Vision each continue to theirs.
Case StudiesWhere section 1 continues by default.
Scout: innovations matched to the call’s problem statementRecommended
EvaluateProposals and technical demonstrations, structured to evaluate.
AcquisitionThe capability the call was written for.
Machine LearningOther areasAfter section 1Matched to the problem statement

Steps, questions and routes are named as in the original designs. The diagram simplifies the path between them.

Call authoring

Let the technical domain determine the next question.

A robotics submission and a communications submission need different follow-up questions. The form builder makes that logic part of the call: authors define the branches, require an answer and decide where each section goes next.

  1. Machine Learning continues to ‘Machine Learning’, Robotics to ‘Robotics’. The route sits beside the answer it belongs to.

  2. After section 1, the call continues to ‘Case Studies’. The sequence of questions is part of the call’s design.

  3. Machine Learning asks which sub-domains a participant has experience with. Each of those answers carries a route too.

  4. The author decides which answers a call cannot do without, at the question itself.

  5. Steps with a problem carry a warning in the call’s outline, beside the steps that are complete.

The original call-authoring design: a form builder where the Focus Areas question routes Machine Learning, Communications, Robotics and Computer Vision each to its own section, with a Machine Learning follow-up section, a default route to Case Studies, a Required switch per question, and the call’s outline of steps.
The original authoring design. Its content is illustrative.

Question types

Give costs and milestones their own structure.

ROM cost estimates, milestone timelines and technical questions need different inputs. Each question type carries its own validation, optional fields and explanatory context, so a submission keeps the detail evaluators need.

A ROM Cost Estimate question in the original authoring design, with its answers, additional context and a Make optional switch
A Date/Time question with Milestones switched on: three milestones, each with an optional minimum and maximum date

Design principle

The call’s structure should reflect the capability it is asking for.

Around the call

Who works on a call, and what it finds.

  1. Access

    Make access part of authoring.

    Program managers invite editors and set visibility inside the call workflow. Organization and active or invited states sit beside the content being prepared.

    Who can manage this call: searching for editors across government organizations, with each one’s organization and status
  2. Scout

    Find the capability. See the context.

    Innovations are matched to the call’s problem statement. Filter by technical category, browse best matches and recent submissions, then group or invite them.

    Scout for a robotics call: innovations matched to the problem statement, filtered by technical category

Outcome

A complex call, without flattening every technical response into the same form.

  1. 01

    Relevant questions

    Technical focus determines the next section.

  2. 02

    Structured evidence

    Costs, milestones and technical detail have distinct inputs.

  3. 03

    Clear responsibility

    Editors and visibility are part of the call itself.

Credits

Role
Product designer
Work
Product design, search UX, information architecture, design system
Client
Cylitix, with sponsorship from the Department of Defense
Worked with
The Cylitix team and DoD stakeholders
Duration
2 months
Platform
Web, designed in Figma

Project content in the screens is illustrative, as on the original case study. The route map and the camera moves are presentation built from the original designs.

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