Hey there, you busy recruiters and managers 👋
Here’s your highlight reel—skip ahead for the full story:
GlobalGreen Warehouses needed a streamlined way to manage their resource-intensive buildings. Their existing tools were outdated, scattered, and didn’t meet new climate or budget goals.
As the project’s sole UX designer, I guided the team from chaos to clarity. By questioning assumptions, listening to users, and overhauling the app, I helped cut through the noise and laid a foundation that made managing buildings—and their energy use—a whole lot smarter.
GlobalGreen’s Operational Hurdles
A snapshot of the chaos, storyboard-style—because words alone don’t do it justice:
The Ask
GlobalGreen wanted one app to control building systems, modernize old tools, and speed up upgrades—while keeping code in-house to cut long-term costs.
Stratus (anonymized) was hired to build it, but progress stalled. Teams were misaligned, goals were fuzzy, and no one had stepped back to ask the right questions.
That’s when TensorIoT stepped in—to bring clarity, align stakeholders, and get things moving again.
My Role
I joined as the sole UX designer to cut through the noise and bring direction. My job: challenge assumptions, uncover real user needs, and turn chaos into a clear, buildable plan.
Across three phases over two years, I helped align teams, prioritize user outcomes, and shape a product vision that stuck.
Version 1 (April - July 2022)
When I joined, the team handed me a list of features and rigid instructions to cram everything onto a “single of glass”—just slap some “shiny” on it, no time for bigger questions.
My quick mockup ticked all their boxes… until the demo. Stakeholders raised red flags: we didn’t have access to half the data powering these features, and no one was sure the design actually solved user pain points.
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EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE = NOTHING FOR ANYONE
This dashboard tries to do it all—leaving users overwhelmed and without clear priorities. Managers need focus, not a buffet of metrics. With thousands of sites and HVAC units, this layout wasn’t scalable anyway.
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A MOONSHOT WITHOUT THE ROCKET FUEL
The visuals relied on data that didn’t exist. GlobalGreen had no way to track site-level energy use, and retrofitting for it would cost a fortune—and take years we didn’t have.
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LOST IN A MAZE OF MENUS
Ambiguous menu labels led to confusion. What’s “my eBSM”? Are those links filters or full pages? Navigation shouldn’t require a guessing game.
Version 2 (August - December 2022)
After the v1 demo flopped, the team was stuck, unsure where to go next. Three phases in, it hit us: we’d skipped the basics. I stepped up and started asking the tough questions:
- What problems are we actually trying to solve?
- What data and resources do we really have to work with?
- And who’s calling the shots?
To tackle these questions, I identified Morgan, the Sr. Program Manager, as our key decision-maker, and together we pinpointed Regional Warehouse Managers as our central users. Reviewing existing apps and touring sites with Morgan laid the groundwork for key insights and next steps.
CUSTOM GLOSSARY
Faced with a flood of acronyms and technical HVAC terms, I created a glossary to demystify GlobalGreen's dense lexicon. This initiative not only helped our team speak fluently with stakeholders, but also provided a solid foundation for informed design decisions throughout the project.
CONTEXTUAL MAP
I created this map of the four pilot sites to give our discussions some much-needed grounding. With so many buildings and no one familiar with GlobalGreen’s infrastructure, conversations kept spinning in circles. Visualizing specific locations with their official names helped us move from vague ideas to concrete planning.
PROJECT TEAM MAP
I mapped out the connections in our oversized Phase 3 team—spanning two consultancies—because with a group this big, no one knew who to ask for what. The chart made roles clear, smoothed communication, and got things moving.
Then I went straight to the source—interviewing six Regional Managers to learn what frustrated them in the current app. Their pain points were clear: confusing filters, scattered data, and no way to prioritize.
WHERE THE CURRENT BMS FALLS APART
Turns out, our v1 had just repeated the same mistakes. Here’s what users struggled with—and how I made sure v2 didn’t.
DISJOINTED EXPERIENCE
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This dashboard tries to do too much at once, leaving users unsure where to focus—managers need priorities, not a buffet of metrics. Not only was this overwhelming, it wasn’t scalable - Global Green has thousands of sites, each with dozens of HVAC machines, and it clearly wasn’t going to work to cram them all in on this page.
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Updates required time-consuming, costly coordination between multiple third parties. To avoid this, GlobalGreen teams started linking their own add-on apps here, which led to duplicated features and a fragmented experience.
CLUTTERED AND CONFUSING
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Every site looked equally important—so spotting actual issues was like finding a needle in a haystack.
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Red looked like a warning. Green felt like a “go.” But neither meant anything, leaving users second-guessing what the colors were trying to say.
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Tight spacing blurred the lines between labels and numbers, making even simple data hard to read—and harder to trust.
MISSING CUSTOMIZATION
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Filters weren’t designed to stay saved, so users had to redo their selections every time. For personas focused on a specific subset of sites, this oversight added needless hassle.
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Without high-level site summaries, regional managers and execs had to manually export data and build their own KPIs—adding time and hassle to their workflow.
SCATTERED FILTERS AND CONFUSING NAVIGATION
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Filters were scattered—some in the map, some in the table, and others in the navigation, with no easy way to see which filters were applied where.
To make it worse, they were mixed with external links, leaving users guessing what to expect when clicking and making it tough to find what they needed.
While I dug into user pain points, devs explored what data was actually usable. We regrouped for a Long-Range Planning session, where I led the team through insights and helped shape a roadmap that got stakeholders excited 🥳.
IMPACT-EFFORT MATRIX
I led an effort vs. impact exercise to cut the noise and focus on high-value, realistic features. This gave v2 momentum and made our decisions bulletproof in front of stakeholders.
With direction locked, I designed a new app that tackled real user needs and nailed our business goals. Here's how we brought clarity, sanity, and a little ✨ polish ✨ to v2:
BMS, BUT MAKE IT MAKE SENSE
USER PAIN POINT
The original app’s landing page, added as an afterthought, was cluttered and lacked clear hierarchy, leaving users struggling to navigate effectively.
DESIGN DECISION(S)
I gave the site directory a much-needed glow-up—same features, but with smarter spacing and a clearer color hierarchy that actually makes sense. The once-cluttered landing page now feels like a proper starting point, setting the stage for smooth navigation and future upgrades as we phased out the old app.
USER PAIN POINT
The original app’s vague links like "Home" or "GR" left users guessing, while cluttered filters and unlabeled external links added to the confusion—issues the v1 redesign failed to address.
DESIGN DECISION(S)
I revamped the navigation with clear, descriptive labels like "Site Directory," "Heads Up Dashboard," and "Trending Dashboard," so users instantly knew where to go. Filters were removed from the side menu, and external links were clearly marked for a smoother, more intuitive experience.
USER PAIN POINT
Filters were scattered across the map, table, and navigation, forcing Regional Warehouse Managers to hunt through thousands of irrelevant sites just to focus on their assigned region or site type.
DESIGN DECISION(S)
Filters, once scattered everywhere, are now grouped in one clear menu with intuitive toggles and a handy 'Set as Default' button—helping users focus on what matters without getting lost in irrelevant noise.
USER PAIN POINT
Managers were buried under a flood of unorganized data, left guessing which sites needed attention. Without a way to prioritize or filter, they spent more time hunting for problems than solving them.
DESIGN DECISION(S)
I streamlined the chaos with a Heads Up Dashboard that spotlights the top problem sites in seven key categories. Paired with tailored filters, managers can focus only on sites in their purview, turning endless data into a clear action plan.
USER PAIN POINT
The V1 mockup promised big, flashy visuals but relied on inaccessible or incomplete data, making it more of a wish list than a usable tool.
DESIGN DECISION(S)
All of the v2 redesign was designed with realistic, accessible data at its core, ensuring every feature—like the Trending Dashboard—delivered actionable insights managers could trust. By ditching impractical visuals and focusing on meaningful patterns, v2 empowers users with reliable tools for smarter planning and decision-making.
BONUS ROUND: LOGO GLOW-UP 🎉
The customer wanted a unique logo for the app, distinct from GlobalGreen’s branding. Options 1 and 2, focused on interconnectedness, missed the mark for Morgan. Inspired by his “one app to rule them all” comment, I explored Jarvis-inspired designs (3 and 4) and concepts rooted in building infrastructure (5 and 6).
Option 4 struck the perfect balance: it captured the app’s purpose while staying cohesive with GlobalGreen’s identity—and Morgan was sold.
Version 3 (January - July 2023)
With funding unlocked and lessons from v2 in hand, we were ready to move from MVP to something that felt truly strategic—leaner code, smarter filters, and data-driven insights that scaled.
Here’s how we took things from solid to standout:
USER PAIN POINT
Custom React components in v2 were buggy, fragile, and slowed devs down.
DESIGN DECISION(S)
We switched to Cloudscape for out-of-the-box components, and moved settings like temperature units into app preferences. Devs moved faster, and the UI stayed flexible and consistent.
USER PAIN POINT
Filters in v2 were cleaner but still lacked the nuance managers needed to track what mattered to them.
DESIGN DECISION(S)
We added "favorites" and expanded filtering options—making it easy to monitor a custom mix of regions, site types, and priorities.
USER PAIN POINT
The v2 sensor leaderboard surfaced issues—but gave no next steps. Managers had to hunt through data to figure out what was wrong.
DESIGN DECISION(S)
I redesigned it with ML-driven insights, showing which sensors were failing, why, and how to fix them. Now it’s a problem-solving tool, not just a red flag.
Over three phases, I became the team’s not-so-secret weapon—asking the sharp, game-changing questions that shifted priorities and cleared the path forward. By bridging user needs with business goals, I crafted designs that didn’t just solve problems—they set the stage for future success.
The payoff? A final demo I led that left stakeholders energized and on board, showcasing a sleek, scalable app that managers could actually use. With this foundation in place, the next steps were clear: continue migrating pieces of the old apps into this one, expand to other target personas, and ensure each new feature added strategic value.
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