Turning early-stage building data into a trusted single source of truth.

Project snapshot.

Building engineering teams (MEP) were working from brittle spreadsheets, isolated Revit models and a patchwork of processes that made even simple updates slow and error-prone. The Origin platform set out to change that.

As UX design engineering lead, I guided the team from early research through to an MVP that brought data, people and workflows together in one coherent platform.

The challenge.

The old ecosystem was costing teams time, clarity and confidence. Data was siloed across Excel templates, isolated Revit models and local workarounds, making it hard to trust or reuse information. Templates cracked under complexity, model dependencies created bottlenecks, rework was common and Autodesk licensing costs kept rising.

We needed to create a tool that felt intuitive, reduced friction and supported the dynamic, spatial way engineers actually think.

My approach.

Making sense of engineering reality

I worked with the Product Owner and Principle Data Architect to facilitate research sessions with engineers across disciplines, developing personas, workflow maps and journey diagrams that surfaced the real points of friction. These artefacts helped the product owner, developers and stakeholders align quickly on what genuinely mattered.

Figure: Origin project discovery / ideation facilitation
Intent: workshop
Explains: A facilitated discovery session used to frame the Origin platform problem, align disciplines, and surface early system concepts.
Participants: Product owner; MEP engineers; design engineering lead.
Outcome: Shared problem framing and prioritised themes that informed the initial platform architecture.
Claims supported:

• Early cross-disciplinary alignment reduced rework later in delivery.
• Workshop outputs directly informed subsequent system design decisions.

Designing a new data experience

I designed user flows and interface patterns for project setup, Revit imports and equipment data entry.

A key part of the design direction was treating engineering data more like spatial, parametric information—something that could be shaped, queried and trusted. Rapid prototypes allowed us to test assumptions early and refine the interaction model with confidence.

Driving adoption through familiar tools

To help users transition away from fragile legacy templates, we built an Excel add-in that met power users where they already worked. This reduced resistance to change, eased onboarding and provided a bridge between old habits and the new single source of truth.

Figure: Platform ecosystem
Intent: diagram
Explains: A system map showing how engineers moved between Revit, familiar spreadsheet workflows, and the Origin web platform, and how data flowed between each surface.
Participants: Product owner; MEP engineers; design engineering lead; front-end and platform engineers.
Outcome: A shared mental model of the end-to-end workflow that guided scope decisions, integration priorities, and onboarding strategy.
Claims supported:

• Meeting users in familiar tools reduced adoption friction.
• Making data flow explicit helped the team prioritise integrations and remove handoff pain.

Engineering for scale and evolution

To support iterative delivery, I defined the front-end architecture that later evolved into Open Origin, set up CI/CD pipelines, and established an evergreen component library within a micro‑frontend (MFE) network. Alongside this, I actively promoted cross‑department advocacy, encouraging teams to contribute, share patterns and co‑own the platform’s evolution to ensure consistency and momentum across new features.

A culture of continuous learning

Usability testing was woven into each release, guiding the team towards clearer, more efficient solutions.

This rhythm helped build trust, demonstrated the value of evidence-led design, and nudged the organisation towards more design-informed ways of working.

Figure: Miro board capture during live UX testing with MEP engineers
Intent: artifact
Explains: A shared Miro workspace used to log observations, issues, and quotes in real time while engineers tested the software.
Participants: MEP engineers (test users); UX design engineering lead; product owner (observer).
Outcome: Prioritised usability themes and actionable fixes that shaped the next iteration of workflows and UI.
Claims supported:

• Evidence-led testing directly informed design changes.
• Real user input accelerated alignment on what to fix first.

What changed.

Origin delivered measurable operational gains:

• Early-stage design could begin much sooner
• Engineers saved 8–12 hours per project update
• Updates that once took days became near real-time
• Teams moved to a single source of truth, eliminating duplication
• Autodesk licence usage dropped
• Cross-discipline collaboration became cleaner and more predictable

But the deeper impact was cultural. Origin showed that design-led, parametric thinking can reshape how a technical organisation works—reducing noise, aligning teams and unlocking better decisions.

The final experience

I led the design and delivery of a user-centred interface that balanced industrial, utilitarian usability with a modern UX aesthetic. Informed by direct research with engineers, my contribution focused on making complex, data-dense workflows clear, explicit and predictable, reducing ambiguity and cognitive load in everyday decision-making. Through interface architecture, interaction design and front-end implementation, I translated real engineering behaviours into robust UI patterns that prioritised speed, accuracy and trust. The result was a platform that moved beyond the fragility of legacy engineering tools, showing how enterprise software can remain operationally rigorous while still being intuitive and well considered.

Figure: Origin webapp interface for managing spaces
Intent: ui
Explains: The primary desktop interface for managing architectural room design and engineering space data, showing the parametric control palette, spatial hierarchy, and data-dense but readable layout.
Outcome: A platform that balanced industrial rigour with modern UX, reducing cognitive load while supporting complex, data-rich workflows.
Claims supported:

• Interface architecture translated real engineering behaviours into robust UI patterns.
• Design prioritised speed, accuracy and trust in everyday decision-making.

Technologies used

Looking back.

Origin represents the intersection of research, UX, engineering and product thinking that defines my practice. It wasn’t just a tool upgrade; it was a fundamental shift in how engineering teams understood and handled their data. And for me, it reinforced how evidence based UX design can help organisations work with more clarity and purpose.