Chapter 35 — Design studio II
Lesson map
Lesson 35 published. Map, example, EX103.
flowchart TD
N0["Learning outcomes"]
N1["35.1 Brief"]
N2["35.2 Templates"]
N3["35.3 Adversarial review"]
N4["35.4 Effort and risk"]
N5["35.5 Accessibility"]
N6["Practice note — fewer, better products"]
N7["Measuring readership"]
N0 --> N1 --> N2 --> N3 --> N4 --> N5 --> N6 --> N7
N7 --> EX["Worked example"]
EX --> Q["Exercise EX103"]
Logical drawing
flowchart LR
N0["Learning outcomes"]
N1["35.1 Brief"]
N2["35.2 Templates"]
N3["35.3 Adversarial review"]
N4["35.4 Effort and risk"]
N5["35.5 Accessibility"]
N6["Practice note — fewer, better products"]
N7["Measuring readership"]
N0 --> N1 --> N2 --> N3 --> N4 --> N5 --> N6 --> N7 --> Q["EX103"]
[Learning outcomes]
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[35.1 Brief]
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[35.2 Templates]
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[35.3 Adversarial review]
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[35.4 Effort and risk]
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[35.5 Accessibility]
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[Practice note — fewer, better products]
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[Measuring readership]
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[Worked example] --> [Exercise EX103]
Learning outcomes
You will (1) design Lantern's analysis and dissemination layer; (2) produce product templates for different consumers; (3) defend design choices against an adversarial reviewer; (4) estimate effort and risks for the build.
35.1 Brief
Design how analysts turn stored objects into products: a daily tactical digest, a weekly operational summary and a quarterly strategic brief for executives, each with TLP controls, ICD 203-style judgment language and feedback capture.
The three products serve different readers on different schedules. Analysts need the digest each morning; managers want the weekly summary before their planning meeting; executives read the brief once a quarter. Kofi's team designed each from the reader's decision backwards, starting with what the reader should be able to do after reading.
35.2 Templates
Tactical digest: top indicators by confidence, actions taken, sightings. Operational summary: active campaigns with Diamond structure and ATT&CK techniques. Strategic brief: adversary trends relevant to electricity distribution, key judgments with estimative words and a published probability scale.
Each template has a fixed order so readers know where to look. Kofi kept the digest to a single screen and the strategic brief to two pages. Templates also force the analyst to fill in a source and confidence for each item, which makes gaps obvious before publication.
35.3 Adversarial review
A reviewer plays a sceptical executive: "Why should I trust this?" The design answers with source descriptions, confidence, and a track record of past judgments.
The answers come from records Lantern already keeps. Source descriptions explain who reported something and how they knew it. Past judgments are scored when outcomes become known, so a reader can see how often the team's likely meant what it said. The sceptical reviewer in Kofi's studio was satisfied by that record, not by the confidence of the writing.
35.4 Effort and risk
The team estimates effort per component and lists risks: analyst time to write strategic briefs, partner consent to quote, executive attention.
Strategic briefs took far more analyst time than the team first guessed; Kofi's estimate doubled after he timed a trial brief. Partner consent to quote material can take weeks, which affects the schedule. Executive attention is the scarcest resource of all, so the brief is limited to what they can act on. Each risk has an owner and a plan.
35.5 Accessibility
Products are readable on mobile, avoid colour-only coding (TLP labels are written in text, as TLP 2.0 recommends) and include alt text for figures.
Kofi tested the templates on a phone and with a screen reader. A chart that used colour alone to show severity was unreadable to one reviewer, so severity is now also written as a word. Writing the label in text also means it survives printing in black and white. Accessible products reach more readers, which matters when the reader is an engineer in a substation reading on a tablet.
Practice note — fewer, better products
Studio teams often propose a dozen product types. The panel pushes back: three products that are read beat twelve that are ignored.
Measuring readership
Each product records opens and feedback clicks. After a quarter the team retires any product that nobody reads and asks its intended audience what they need instead.
Worked example
Kofi's strategic brief template opens with three key judgments, each with an estimative phrase mapped to a range, the basis for the judgment and what would change it. The sceptical reviewer accepts the template after seeing that past judgments are tracked for accuracy.
Synthetic case. The template review is invented.
Errors and limits
Templates can become boilerplate; reviewers should check that each product says something new. Strategic products need analyst time, not just automation.
Exercises
- EX103 — Three products. Match tactical, operational and strategic products to their main audience. Rubric: 3 = SOC analysts; IR/hunt leads; executives; 2 = two; 1 = one; 0 = none.
- EX104 — Trust answer. Give two design features that answer "why should I trust this?" Rubric: 3 = two of source description, confidence/estimative scale, track record, change triggers; 2 = one; 1 = branding; 0 = none.
- EX105 — Colour-only. Why should TLP labels be written in text rather than shown only by colour? Rubric: 3 = accessibility/colour blindness/printing; TLP 2.0 guidance; 2 = accessibility; 1 = no reason; 0 = none.
Synthesis
Design few products for named audiences, make trust visible, plan effort honestly and keep products accessible.
Continue studying — chapter 35 of 50
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