Context

The platform supports the management of underfloor insulation surveys and installations across distributed field teams.

Over time, it evolved without a coherent design system or information architecture. As a result:

• User experience became inconsistent
• Core workflows required unnecessary navigation
• The platform became increasingly difficult to scale and maintain

Alongside a backend migration, we redesigned the frontend to improve usability, scalability and accessibility across the system.

My role: Solo Product Designer and Product Owner

Challenge

The platform had evolved without a clear information architecture or design system, creating a growing disconnect between how the system was structured and how users needed to operate in practice.

This resulted in:

• Fragmented workflows requiring navigation across multiple screens
• Poor visibility and access to critical information
• Redundant features adding unnecessary complexity
• Long loading times impacting operational efficiency

As the product scaled, these issues made the platform increasingly difficult to maintain, extend and use effectively in real-world operational contexts.

Approach

To support a shift in market positioning, I defined two primary user groups with distinct but overlapping needs:

• Project Managers: coordinating surveys and installations
• Technicians: executing work in the field

This helped prioritise essential system capabilities and define a clearer structural foundation, including:

• Key system entry points (e.g. property listing and property pages)
• Enabling features such as deep linking across workflows

Information architecture:

Designing for scalability and clarity

The design approach focused on simplifying complexity while ensuring the system could scale with new use cases.

This included:

• Creation and evolution of a design system to support consistency and scalability
• Iterative exploration through low-fidelity wireframes
• Benchmarking patterns from established products (e.g. search and navigation systems)
• Continuous validation with operational users
• Close collaboration with engineering to align on technical constraints
• Creation and evolution of a design system to support consistency and scalability

Deep Dive: Property Page (Core Operational Interface)

The Property Page is a critical point in the system, used to access and manage all project-related information.

The original interface had evolved incrementally, resulting in:

Limited scalability as new features were added

• High interaction cost
• Poor information hierarchy
• Limited scalability as new features were added

Previous workflow:

Design Approach

Rather than a full redesign, I restructured the information architecture to better reflect how users access and prioritise information in real-world contexts.

Key improvements included:

• Removing low-value features to reduce cognitive load
• Grouping high-frequency information for immediate access
• Introducing clearer hierarchy and separation of data (property vs customer)
• Adding contextual elements (e.g. property image, client name) to support orientation in the field
• Designing scalable navigation (including vertical secondary navigation) to accommodate growing system complexity

Selected screens from design development:

Latest design:

Impact

The redesigned system improved how users navigate and interact with complex data sets:

• 50% reduction in time to access critical information
• Clearer mental models for navigating system workflows
• Improved usability and accessibility across the platform
• Reduced complexity, supporting more efficient ongoing development

The platform is now deployed across the company and its accredited installation partners, supporting real-world operations at scale.

• Quicker and easier access to key data, making onsite operations smoother and  reducing frictions
• Reduced software development costs for the business

Key Takeaway

The most interesting challenge was to create and integrate a new design system to scale the platform without redesigning it entirely.