4FIMO
- Role: Product Designer
- Timeline: 8 weeks
- Team Size: 1 product designer, 1 PM, 2 engineers, 1 support lead
- Platform: Mobile web, desktop companion app, responsive web
- Purpose: Discovery, user flows, wireframes, prototype, usability testing, final UI, developer handoff
Product Context
4Fimo is a privacy-first file movement product built around legal workflows, where lawyers need secure access to sensitive case documents across devices. The product originally supported one thing: sending files from a computer to a phone.
Step 1: Expanding the Product
Workflow Built for Sending, Not Retrieving
The original experience was built around a simple Send model: select a file on desktop, upload it to a list, and it becomes available on the phone.
This broke down for the legal use case in a few specific ways:
- Users had to know in advance which file they'd need.
- Files had to be sent one at a time, manually.
- The phone couldn't retrieve anything that hadn't already been prepared.
- There was no way to make an entire case folder available for future access.
- Any move toward broader access raised an immediate concern: users did not want their whole computer exposed.
The spark. An attorney at Mand Rai LLP complained he was basically carrying his laptop everywhere, because the only way to get a document onto his phone was to send it — from that exact laptop — ahead of time. That complaint is what led to 4Fimo's first version: secure send, laptop to phone.
Step 2: Changing the System
My redesign flipped the model
Instead of the laptop pushing files out, the phone gets access to specific approved folders — and can pull from them at any point. No more guessing what to send ahead of time.
Approved folders, set up on desktop. setup is explicit: pick folders, review exactly what becomes accessible, confirm with a passcode. Users see a live status per folder — search ready, indexing, needs attention — so nothing feels like a black box. This allows lawyers to create a file for a client and then allow access on 4fimo. Whenever the lawyer needs access to the file it is available everywhere without relying on the cloud or allowing access to all their computer files.
Retrieval, built around what's already approved. On the phone, search and browse only ever surface folders that were explicitly granted. No blank search box guessing at what might be there.
Security made visible, not implied. At every access decision — approving a folder, pulling a file — the interface says exactly what is and isn't exposed. Retrieved files even show a countdown: available for 60 minutes, then gone unless downloaded.