Romet
2024
Enterprise SaaS
Consultant Design Lead
Energy Array
What does it take to turn an engineer-built proof of concept into a full enterprise SaaS platform?
01 — Context
An enterprise platform, validated in code first.
Energy Array is Romet's data management platform for utility providers — customers, billing, contracts, assets, and demand-response programs in one ecosystem. Before securing the budget for a full build, the concept had been validated with a proof of concept built directly in code, with no designers involved.
Through 7 Seas, a Los Angeles-based agency, I joined as design lead to turn that POC into a real product experience.
Placeholder — image: module mosaic (Customer Dashboard · Aggregator Dashboard · Assets Map)
02 — My Role
Design lead, from architecture to interface.
I owned UX, UI, and information architecture — partnering with 7 Seas' founder on ideation and working directly with Romet's lead engineer in recurring remote sessions. By the time I handed the project over in mid-2024, the navigation model, interaction patterns, and UI foundation were established — the base the next design team built on.
01
Understand
Stakeholder sessions · POC audit · Domain mapping · IA opportunities
02
Structure
Information architecture · Navigation model · Hierarchy and wayfinding · Screen flows
03
Design & validate
UI design · Interactive prototype · Remote stakeholder testing · UI foundation
Information Architecture
UX Design
UI Design
Prototyping
Stakeholder Validation
Design Foundations
03 — The Problem
The POC proved the technology — not the experience.
Built by engineers on stock Material Design, the POC did its job: it validated the platform. But as a product for daily utility operations, it worked against its users in four ways:
01
Deep data, no wayfinding
Customers, service agreements, and service points nest several levels deep — the UI gave no sense of where you were.
02
No visual hierarchy
Dense dashboards where every widget competed for attention — critical signals carried the same weight as secondary data.
03
Stock patterns, enterprise problems
Default Material components weren't built for workflows like program enrollment, demand-response events, and asset operations.
04
Navigation that didn't scale
A flyout-menu structure that strained under a platform growing past a dozen functional areas.
04 — Before / After
From default Material to a purpose-built enterprise UI.
Before
Stock Material Design, built straight in code
Flyout menus hiding the platform's structure
No wayfinding across deep hierarchies
Dashboards without visual hierarchy
Generic components stretched to enterprise use
Single hard-coded brand
After
Purpose-built UI with its own token system
Persistent sidebar exposing every module at once
Icon- and color-coded breadcrumbs for deep navigation
Dashboards: highlights first, trends below, detail on demand
Patterns designed for utility-scale workflows
White-label theming for each utility's brand
Placeholder — Before: POC Customer details (15673:228068)
Placeholder — After: Customer Dashboard (312:81000)
05 — The Solution
One system of patterns, not 280 screens.
Placeholder — video: wayfinding across Customers
Icon- and color-coded breadcrumbs turn deep hierarchies into a legible trail — from customer to service agreement to service point, you always know where you are. The same pattern extends to Programs, Assets, and beyond.
Placeholder — video: module dashboards
Placeholder — image: Aggregator Dashboard (679:62284)
Every module dashboard follows one rhythm: highlights first, trends next, detail on demand.
Placeholder — video: program setup / enrollment flow
Placeholder — image: Assets — Import & Export (9442:245331)
Operational workflows — program setup, aggregator enrollment, asset import — broken into clear, step-based flows.
06 — Outcome
A foundation built to outlast my time on it.
13
Functional areas unified under a single navigation and UI system
Figma · 2023–2024
280+
Screens designed and connected into one interactive prototype for stakeholder validation
Interactive prototype
0 → 1
From engineer-built POC to a UX foundation the next design team extended
Design foundation
Millions
Of end customers and devices the platform is designed to scale to
Source: rometlimited.com
"[Placeholder — awaiting Raph's words] Gustavo took a platform of enormous complexity and gave it a structure people could actually navigate. The foundation he set is what every designer after him built on."
Raph
Founder, 7 Seas — placeholder quote, pending approval