Platform
Web app
Category
GIS · LAND
Timeline
~1 month
Project Meridian is a GIS and land-management system for renewable-energy development. It gives a developer's land team one map-first workspace to take a project from a point on a map to signed contracts — searching for viable land, scoring parcels against constraints, managing landowner negotiations, and preparing planning submissions for solar, battery-storage and wind.
Credit where it's due
The client's own GIS expert authored the technical scope and had built a working predecessor system — the domain model was his. Our work was the usability layer on top: the map interface, object panels, and reporting views.
Developing a renewable site is as much a land-and-legal process as an engineering one: identify a grid connection, search thousands of parcels, score each against dozens of constraints, trace ownership through title deeds, negotiate options and easements, and draw legally precise boundaries.
To ensure every design decision was grounded in real user needs, we followed a structured Design Thinking process—from understanding user behaviors to validating solutions through iterative design.
01
Empathize
02
Define
03
Ideate
04
Usability Testing
01. EMPATHIZE WITH USERS
No formal end-user interviews were conducted. Discovery ran on the client's own technical scope, their working predecessor system, and the twelve-step journey their land team already followed.
Research goals
Understand where the predecessor fought its users, and why a system that worked was still hard to use. Map how the land team actually moves a project from a point on a map to a signed contract. Identify which steps carry real financial and legal risk, so the interface could guard them rather than merely expose them.
What discovery drew on
Three inputs: the GIS lead's technical specification, which defined the domain model; the predecessor system itself, which showed what worked and what did not; and the client's twelve-step journey, walked in order with stakeholders during an intensive one-month build.
Empathy map
Interview notes clustered around trust in the builder, clarity of layout, and a desire to picture themselves in the space.
Says
"Where does each product stand?" · "Did that build pass cert?" · "Have I entered this the same way everywhere?"
Thinks
"One missed cert requirement or dependency can blow a launch date." "I shouldn't have to type the same thing 20 times."
Feels
Anxious about things slipping silently; frustrated by duplication, unclear next steps, and no single view of progress.
Affinity Mapping
Clustering findings from internal interviews and empathy maps isolated common operational bottlenecks, helping distinguish isolated complaints from systemic friction points across GIS handoffs, constraint scoring, and landowner tracking.
02. DEFINE
We reframed the brief from "rebuild the system" to "keep the expert's power, make it usable by the whole land team."
PAIN
GAIN
Personas
"The Enterprise Gatekeeper"
"I manage our entire spatial infrastructure, and my biggest headache is when a database fails or our map services lag because of unoptimized queries. I don't just need tools to view spatial data—I need a centralized environment to monitor server health, automate user permissions, safely back up terabytes of imagery, and ensure system uptime. When the GIS portal goes down, hundreds of field operators and analysts are dead in the water, and that's on me."
Persona 1: "The Enterprise Gatekeeper"
01
/
03
03. IDEATE
01
Preset symbology
Map styling treated as a token system — constraint, parcel, boundary and status colours preset, so a hundred projects stay readable at a glance.
02
Progressive disclosure
The toolbar reveals capability in the order the work happens, so the interface teaches the twelve-step workflow rather than assuming it.
03
Mode gating
Editing legally significant geometry requires entering an explicit mode, so planning red lines and retained-land blue lines cannot be changed by accident.
User flow
The Wireframes & Low-Fidelity Prototype
High-fidelity screens
04. VALIDATION
No formal usability study was run this phase. Validation came from regular design reviews with the client's stakeholders — including the GIS lead who authored the scope — iterating the interface against deep domain expertise. With Phase 2 never commissioned, boundary drawing and parcel selection remain the priority candidates for structured testing.