Quality & Compliance System for Field Operations

A platform that outgrew its structure

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.

Structure out of step with real use

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.

Designing for two user groups

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

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

Property page, the 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:

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

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

A platform that scales

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 friction
• Reduced software development costs for the business

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