Ecology research
Teia
Field biologists were running animal-data projects out of Excel. This gave them one place to plan, import and assign.
- Internal tool
- Data
- UX research
- Role
- Design Lead
- Industry
- Biology, ecology research
- Scope
- Internal web app
- Duration
- Three months
The short version
Teia, in three parts
The problem
Starting a project meant hand-building a plan in a spreadsheet, then wrestling the data collected in the field into a shape it was never designed to hold. Editing a plan cost as much as writing one, so plans stopped getting edited.
What I did
Read the documents already in use before talking to anyone, so the interviews with project managers and biologists could be about the friction rather than the format. A competitive read, an information architecture, then prototype rounds on the three things that hurt: creating a project, importing data, assigning researchers.
What shipped
A project overview that answers the status question at a glance. Project creation with fields that fill themselves from what the organisation already knows. A research-areas section holding the geography. And calendar planning that shows who is free, when, and against which project.
- Increase in overall work efficiency
- 200%+Increase in overall work efficiency
- Less time on manual tasks, within six months
- 40%Less time on manual tasks, within six months
The work
What shipped.
A project, with its areas and its people in one place. 
Calendar planning, against real availability. 
The overview. Status without asking anyone. 
Research areas, which is where the field data lands. 
In use. 
And on a phone, in the field.
1 / 6
Next case
LDU
A Singapore legal solution provider that had a brochure, and now has a five-language site its own team edits, a partner portal, and a client product where a company assembles a team of digital twins of the professionals on LDU's roster.
