Enterprise Energy Platform

The Context

At Accenture Song, I worked for nearly 3 years on complex enterprise B2B platforms. The most significant project was designing a plant management and control platform for one of Italy's largest energy operators. I worked in a team of two — myself and my lead — with direct access to the client. This wasn't a typical agency setup with layers of account managers. I was in the room, presenting to stakeholders, defending design decisions, and iterating based on real feedback.

The Challenge

The client needed a platform to design, control, and manage electrical infrastructure. The existing workflows were manual, fragmented, and required specialized knowledge that lived in people's heads, not in systems. The users were field operators and engineers — not tech-savvy people. The interface had to handle complex technical data while remaining intuitive enough for daily use.

My Approach

• On-site user research: I visited operational facilities multiple times to observe how operators actually worked, not how management thought they worked.
• Simplified complex interactions: Introduced drag-and-drop functionality and 2D visual modes that translated technical data into spatial interfaces operators could understand intuitively.
• Iterative presentation to stakeholders: Step-by-step presentations with the client, gathering feedback at every stage rather than revealing a final design.
• Design-development bridge: Worked closely with the frontend team to ensure the design system was implemented consistently. My technical understanding (HTML/CSS/React) meant I could speak the developers' language.

Key Learnings

• Enterprise UX is about trust: Stakeholders don't approve designs because they're beautiful. They approve them because they trust you understand their business.
• Two-person teams move fast: Less coordination overhead, more ownership, faster decisions.
• User research on-site changes everything: What people say they need in a meeting room and what they actually need at their workstation are very different things.

Result

The platform was delivered with highly positive client feedback. The project was renewed, and the approach I established — on-site research, iterative stakeholder reviews, close design-dev collaboration — became the standard for the team. (Note: Specific product visuals are under NDA.)