ImpactEdge
An enterprise sustainability system that streamlines data ownership, workflows, and reporting across departments.
Redesigning a Multi-Portal Sustainability Platform
ImpactEdge is an enterprise sustainability management platform that helps organizations collect, manage, and analyze environmental data across multiple domains.
The product was already in use, supporting complex workflows across data collection, tracking, reporting, and certification. As the platform evolved, it became increasingly powerful—but also more complex, with growing data structures and interconnected features.
Operating across multiple portals, each with distinct user roles and responsibilities, the system introduced significant challenges in navigation, data understanding, and workflow clarity.
Role: Product Designer — UX Audit, System Redesign, Dev Handoff
Domain: Sustainability Management · Enterprise SaaS
Portals: Admin · Data Owner · Partner · Certifier
Type of work: Improvement & Optimization (existing prototype)
Deliverables: Redesigned UI components, interaction patterns, design system, dev specs
Several usability challenges emerged
Improving an already-developed product comes with different constraints. Instead of rethinking the system from scratch, the focus shifts to identifying and resolving existing usability and structural issues within real, actively used workflows.
Key challenges included:
• Complex data structures that were difficult to interpret
• Fragmented workflows across different modules
• Overloaded tables with low readability and unclear hierarchy
• Navigation issues, making it hard to move between related data
These challenges reduced efficiency and made it difficult for users to confidently manage and understand data across the platform.
How I Approached the System
To align the team, I reviewed internal documentation and user insights provided by the Product Owner. To identify key usability issues, I conducted a heuristic evaluation, created a persona, and defined a clear user story and problem statement to anchor design decisions.
Since the platform was already built, instead of creating new flows, I focused on structuring the system through a sitemap, helping the team better understand how modules, data, and navigation are connected.
To better understand user motivations beyond surface-level needs, I applied Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) thinking, focusing on what users are trying to achieve in specific situations.
Strategic Design Improvements
These improvements were approached as system-level solutions, not isolated UI changes—ensuring consistency and scalability across the platform.
Unscalable Table Structures
A key system limitation was the handling of hierarchical data within tables.
Problem: Flat table structures could not represent hierarchical relationships, forcing users to navigate across multiple screens to understand related data.
Solution: Reduced cross-screen navigation and improved readability, enabling users to understand complex data more efficiently.
Rationale: Nested tables eliminate the need for cross-screen navigation by keeping related data in context. A consistent column structure helps users quickly understand where information is located across different tables, improving efficiency—especially in complex workflows like auditing.
Replacing Pop-ups with Structured Modals
Interaction patterns lacked clarity and consistency.
Problem: A single overlay pattern was used for different interaction types (confirmations, forms, and alerts), making it difficult for users to understand what action was required.
Solution: Pop-ups are used only for confirmations; all other interactions are handled through structured modals with clear hierarchy and defined actions.
Rationale: Distinct modal structures help users build a clear mental model of interactions, where form, feedback, and confirmation are visually and behaviorally differentiated—especially important in a compliance-driven environment.
Filter bars that reflect state
Filter interactions lacked visibility and control.
Problem: Filters did not clearly communicate their active state or provide a summary of applied filters, making it difficult to understand and modify filtering criteria.
Solution: Redesigned filter bars to display active filters as dismissible tags, with a visible filter count and the ability to remove filters individually or all at once. Introduced an Advanced Filters drawer to manage more complex filtering without overloading the main interface.
Rationale: Making filter state visible closes the feedback loop, helping users understand how filters affect results while reducing the effort required to modify them.
Impact & Outcomes
The improvements focused on simplifying complex system interactions and making data-heavy workflows more intuitive and consistent.
By restructuring tables, standardizing interaction patterns, and making system states visible, the platform became easier to navigate and understand. Users can now manage data, apply filters, and complete tasks more efficiently without switching across multiple screens.
These changes were implemented as system-level solutions, ensuring consistency across modules rather than isolated UI fixes.
Outcomes
Improved clarity in handling complex, hierarchical data
Reduced reliance on cross-screen navigation
Established consistent interaction patterns across the platform
Enhanced usability within existing technical constraints
Reflection & Learnings
Working on an already-developed system reinforced the importance of designing within constraints rather than starting from scratch. Instead of focusing on individual screens, the challenge was to identify where the system was breaking down and improve it through scalable, system-level decisions.
This experience highlighted the value of:
• designing for consistency across the entire system, not isolated components
• aligning closely with product and development teams to ensure feasible solutions
• simplifying complex structures without reducing the system’s capabilities
It also emphasized the importance of early alignment with development, ensuring that design decisions remain scalable and technically feasible from the start.
In future iterations, the next step would be to further enhance data visibility and reporting flows, building on the established structure to support more advanced user needs.
Key screens
Key interfaces reflecting improved data structure, interaction patterns, and system consistency
