Overview

The project centered around redesigning a carbon management platform that enables organizations to monitor and reduce their carbon footprint. The platform provides businesses with detailed reporting on their emissions, interactive data visualizations to analyze trends, and actionable insights on how to reduce carbon output. In addition, it supports carbon offsetting, allowing companies to invest in certified projects that balance their emissions.

When our team joined, the platform was functional but lacked usability, consistency, and a scalable design approach. The absence of a design system made it difficult for both designers and developers to collaborate effectively, while the interface struggled to present complex climate data in a clear and user-friendly way. To address these challenges, our team introduced a unified design system, streamlined the UX workflow for new features, and worked closely with climate experts to transform technical requirements into intuitive high-fidelity designs.

Goals & Challenges

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Goals

• Redesign the platform to improve usability and make the interface more intuitive and consistent.
• Create a scalable design system (Atlas) to streamline collaboration between designers and developers, while ensuring visual consistency.
• Simplify complex climate data by using clear visualizations, structured reports, and actionable insights.
• Support white-labeling to make the platform adaptable for multiple clients with reduced customization effort.
• Introduce a structured UX workflow for new features and fixes, ensuring every release followed a consistent process from research to accessibility checks. </aside>

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Challenges

• No access to original design files: The team only had the live product and had to extract designs using an HTML-to-design plugin before beginning work.
• Inconsistent UI and cluttered visuals: The existing platform used too many colors and lacked hierarchy, making it difficult to navigate.
• Developer–designer inefficiency: Without a design system, building or updating features was slow and inconsistent.
• Domain complexity: Climate and carbon data required careful translation into user-friendly interfaces without oversimplifying technical accuracy. </aside>

My role

Product Designer — owned end-to-end design for key features, collaborated with developers and team members, and contributed to analytics integration under guidance from the lead designer.

Team: 1 Lead Designer, 1 Product Designer (me), 1 Junior Designer, 4 Developers

The Process

Initial Audit & Discovery

At the start of the project, our team focused on understanding the platform from a user-centered perspective. We began by **breaking down all the user flows, mapping out each process to see what users could do at every step and identifying potential friction points. To ensure we considered the diverse users of the platform, we created personas representing different roles and goals, which helped us prioritize which areas needed the most attention.

Next, we conducted a thorough audit of the existing interface. Screens were added to a shared workspace, and we used sticky notes to document both UI and UX issues. Each sticky captured problems such as confusing navigation, inconsistent typography, redundant components, and unclear visual hierarchy. We also flagged UX pain points, including complex data presentation and hard-to-access features. This process helped the team visualize the full scope of work, prioritize redesign efforts, and create a roadmap for improving the platform systematically.

Building the Atlas Design System