Simplifying task flow complexity for business intelligence and analytics (NDA)
Role
Product Design Lead
Team
Engineering
Timeline
August to December 2024 (17 weeks)
Skills
UX/UI Design
User Research
Product Management
This work is still under NDA, so details and visuals have been generalized and/or omitted to maintain confidentiality. If you’d like to learn more, please feel free to reach out!
01 // OVERVIEW
Aethos Labs is a pre-seed Toronto startup building AI-powered tools to accelerate capital flow into sustainable energy projects. I led product design efforts for a SaaS platform that equips investors and project owners with real-time data and insights — de-risking clean energy investments and enabling informed decision-making.
How might we streamline complex, data-heavy task flows to improve usability and efficiency for users, while maximizing engineering velocity and platform scalability?
02 // PROJECTS
My primary responsibilities were divided into 3 areas:
Creating proof of concept wireframes for 12+ key jobs-to-be-done based on competitive analysis and business needs
I worked closely with our business team to understand industry pain points and general design requirements based on market research. Next, I audited our existing product and conducted competitive analysis to identify critical usability issues and user patterns for similar, data-heavy workflows. I collaborated with cross-functional teams to translate research findings into design goals that aligned with business objectives, focusing on minimizing information access cost and enhancing data usability. I continued to work closely with our development team to design low fidelity wireframes, and iterated upon these wireframes based on their feedback to create medium fidelity prototypes.
Developing a design system with 20+ components to standardize design patterns, reducing cognitive load and enabling rapid iterations
When I joined the team, components were being designed from scratch for each screen, leading to inefficiencies and inconsistent UI elements which performed identical tasks across the platform. To address this issue, I developed a basic design system to ensure visual consistency and enhance usability, while accelerating designer and developer workflows. This system included reusable components, standardized patterns, and detailed documentation to future-proof and support scalability of both the platform and design system. Throughout this project, I collaborated heavily with our Lead Front-end Developer to ensure the design system not only improved the user experience but also enhanced efficiency for both designers and developers.
Supporting existing projects through software QA, data analysis, and prompt engineering to enhance usability and user satisfaction
In addition to leading design initiatives, I contributed to a variety of smaller-scale tasks to support existing projects and the team’s broader goals. These tasks included developing a software testing framework and conducting data QA using PostgreSQL to ensure user satisfaction and product reliability ahead of launch dates. I also assisted with prototyping software features and prompt engineering to explore and refine new features and solutions. Engaging with projects in different areas was extremely valuable, as it provided a deeper understanding of the many moving parts in the overall product development lifecycle and insights into how I can better support my team as a designer.
03 // REFLECTIONS
Tailoring information and communication to bridge the gap between design, development, and business goals
As our sole designer, I needed to clearly communicate the potential impact of my work, explain trade-offs or limitations of various designs or approaches, and advocate for the end user’s experience. I learned a lot about how to tailor the information I presented to best support my audience’s background and priorities. Focusing on common objectives and actions required from stakeholders, while avoiding nitty gritty, design-specific details, made the transition from presentation to decision-making much quicker. It was particularly useful to present my designs with wireframe annotations, as it allowed me to highlight key features and quickly communicate both design intent and technical details.
Designing to support dual user goals across a wide scope
Our target user demographic focused on investors and project owners — both of which have very different needs, pain points and ideals. Furthermore, much of my work was early stage, which meant I was often designing isolated screens without a journey map or MVP requirements. This made it difficult to balance needs of both primary users between different screens and features. To support both, I focused on creating modular and scalable low-fidelity designs which could be adapted for several tasks or to cater to either perspective.
Balancing technical feasibility and innovation
The small size of our team and early stage nature of the projects I worked on meant there often weren’t any other designers or dedicated team members to discuss potential designs with. This made it challenging to balance both technical feasibility and innovation. I often struggled to think of designs which would adequately address user frustrations and appeared to be realistic to implement with limited resources. In these situations, I relied on my team’s judgement and feedback. I would create rough sketches for designs ranging from simple to innovative, and present a selection of sketches for my team to opine on. Typically, the simple and highly feasible solutions were preferred due to lack of existing software solutions and the resource constraints of a startup. This experience taught me a lot about balancing creativity with practicality, and the iterative nature of design. Sometimes, prioritizing the most critical user need(s) is more effective than trying to reinvent the wheel and solve every problem out there.
Designing for a highly specialized and complex industry
There weren’t many existing software solutions in this industry — much of my design work dove into uncharted territory. I made a lot of mistakes that later required revisions, from inconsistencies and conflicts across task flows to making design decisions based off unvalidated assumptions. I often needed to think out of the box and rely on my understanding of design principles to draw from user patterns in solutions with similar workflows.