SECTOR:
B2B | GovTech | Sustainability
ROLE:
UX/UI DESIGNER & TEAM LEAD
DURATION
4 weeks (Sprint format)
YEAR:
2025
About.
UX improvement of a B2B platform for sustainable construction, developed in collaboration with Germany’s Federal Institute for Building (BBSR) and Austria's IBO (Austrian Institute for Building and Ecology).
The improved experience helped translate complex LCA data into clear, guided flow — improving decision-making for material selection.
As a result, users completed tasks 38% faster, 80% correctly interpreted indicators, and reported 1,4x more user confidence (confirmed through usability testing).
The Circularity Tool add-on works as an extension to eLCA. It incorporates data from both Ökobaudat and the T-Baustof dataset, enabling a more comprehensive assessment of material circularity potential.
In 2025, I joined the initiative as a freelance UX/UI designer and Team Lead, working in collaboration with N3XTCODER and stakeholders from BBSR.
The primary goal was to simplify and partially automate the internal process of calculating the Circularity Score — making it faster, more accessible, and more intuitive for both experts and non-experts.
My role as a Team Lead, UX/UI & Brand Designer:
Coordinated the project from research to final prototype.
Created user flows and wireframes; delivered high-fidelity UI.
Led navigation, interaction logic, and collaborative refinement.
Conducted interviews and co-created a user survey.
Refined visual system and branding.
Facilitated stakeholder alignment and team communication.
Research & insights.
To uncover usability barriers within the Circularity Tool, we conducted a mix of stakeholder interviews and user surveys. Participants included professionals from architecture, engineering, and sustainability fields — both experienced users and newcomers.
What we learned:
Users struggled to understand where their inputs went and how they affected results.
Key indicators were poorly explained, making interpretation difficult.
The tool lacked onboarding and contextual guidance for first-time users.
The interface was dense and disconnected from the logic of the LCA process.
These issues impacted both novice and expert users — slowing down analysis and increasing cognitive effort.
These insights pointed to the need for a more structured, transparent and guided UX, that would support both expert-level depth and entry-level clarity.
UX Strategy & Design Direction
Based on the research, we mapped a new user journey to address the most critical friction points. The goal was to transform the tool into a guided, modular experience that supports different levels of user expertise.
We focused on:
Separating responsibilities between the eLCA platform and the Circularity Tool.
Introducing step-by-step guidance for each phase of the Circularity Score process.
Embedding contextual explanations and indicator definitions directly into the interface.
Adapting the UI to support both experts and non-experts, with reduced complexity and clearer structure.
Ensuring continuity between input, evaluation, and results.
To visualize this logic, we designed a new user flow that clearly reflected the structure of the sustainability assessment — aligning the UI with how decisions are made in practice.We mapped a new user journey that addressed these pain points and laid the foundation for the following design phase — where we brought clarity, logic, and structure to the overall experience.
We translated the updated logic into a redesigned user flow that addressed major pain points from our research. The flow clarified key phases of the Circularity Score process and created a consistent structure for input, evaluation, and output.
Each step in the redesigned flow was directly mapped to a user pain point:
Lack of clarity → addressed by introducing a linear, guided sequence with visual progress
No onboarding → resolved through contextual explanations at each input stage
Confusing indicators → replaced with tooltips and visual examples embedded in the score evaluation
Disconnected layout → fixed by aligning the flow with the actual logic of LCA decision-making
This structured approach made the experience significantly more intuitive — even for users unfamiliar with circularity metrics.
Results.
Contextual Support & Simplified UI
Added inline tooltips and dynamic hints to improve indicator comprehension
Clarified metrics with simplified definitions and use cases
Aligned UI hierarchy with the underlying assessment logic
Enhanced onboarding with contextual cues at each step
Step-by-Step UX Flow
To reduce complexity and support new users, we introduced a structured 4-step process for improving Circularity Score Assessment process:
Material editing
Pollutant selection
Circularity Score calculation
Recommendations
A visual progress bar and modular screen structure guided users through the workflow and improved orientation.
AI-Assisted Guidance
We embedded AI-powered suggestions that predict pollutant values and recommend optimal matches based on confidence scoring.
This reduced manual input and helped non-expert users make decisions faster — while keeping all suggestions editable and transparent.
Measurable Outcomes
To validate the improvements, we conducted moderated remote usability testing with 5 participants — architects, engineers, and sustainability professionals.
Each participant completed core tasks (e.g., calculating a score, interpreting results), and we measured:
Task completion time (recorded per flow)
Comprehension (via follow-up questions)
User confidence (self-rated on a 1–5 scale)
Results at a Glance
38% faster task completion
80–90% correct comprehension of indicators
1.4× increase in user confidence
These results confirmed that the redesigned Circularity Tool significantly improved clarity, speed, and user trust — especially for users without prior LCA experience.
Takeaways
Designing a clear UX structure means building logic that helps users feel confident and understand their next steps.
I experienced the power of true team synergy — when each person takes ownership and brings full dedication, the whole process moves like a living mechanism.
That level of commitment is energizing. It creates momentum and inspires everyone to go further.
This project helped me grow as a facilitator: listening more, guiding the process, and balancing expert requirements with real user needs.
While the project is still ongoing, this phase has already delivered strong user feedback and a validated product direction.
Circularity Tool Add-on in Action
This short demo walks through the updated tool, showing how users navigate the Circularity Tool, adjust configurations, and calculate a Circularity score.
Steps shown in the video:
Landing on the updated project dashboard and reviewing its capabilities
Selecting a project to calculate its Circularity Score
Viewing detailed project data and available design variants
Entering the Secularity Inventory and being prompted to add missing building data
Navigating to the Catalog to view missing inputs
Drilled down to the component level to input data step by step:
A) Editing the component
B) Choosing the pollutant
C) Selecting metrics parameters
D)Reviewing system recommendations
Returning to the Circularity Inventory to view the calculated score
Testimonial.
I find the Circular Match Concept to be the most impactful UX improvement.
Isabel Dietsch
Project Manager at BBSR
