I began working on the Habidatum urban analytics platform in mid-2016 and continued for a year.

Team

Design Director: Eduard Haiman

CTO: Vadim Smakhtin

Analytics Director: Ekaterina Serova

Product team: Nikita Pestrov, Alexei Pyzhyanov, Anton Vasin, Tim Tavlintsev, Nadya Klevakina, Galya Sarkisyan, and others.

My Role

Initially, as the sole designer in the company, I collaborated closely with engineering, management, and data science teams.

I designed and updated various interface components and flows using available tools. This often involved working directly with engineers, which facilitated quick iteration. I primarily used Sketch for mockups, Principle for UI animations, and a front-end stack (JS, Stylus, HTML, Git) for building high-fidelity prototypes.

When two more designers joined the team, we completely revamped the design pipeline using Figma (as early as 2017). In all these endeavors, I served as the lead designer. Part of my role also included maintaining the design library and sharing knowledge with the new designers — a part I particularly enjoyed.

Business Goals and Product Challenges

In the dynamic field of urban analytics and big data, a new product developed by a small team needs to be well-designed and properly marketed to compete with more established players. This task involves identifying the right niche, conducting extensive UX and market research, and ensuring technical excellence.

Our team was attempting to address several challenges:

• We needed to onboard the first actual users for the Chronotope platform and start generating revenue;
• We had to establish a user testing process with basic product analytics to measure the app's success;
• The platform, a web app with a complex high-load back-end, required improvements on the client-side and the dashboard;
• With the addition of two more designers primarily using PCs, we faced the issue of maintaining design continuity and the need to create a system of reusable cross-platform design components;
• Certain client projects, particularly presentations created with Readymag, required further refinement and updates that involved both visual and UX elements;