Complex Data for a Sustainable Future
BuildingMinds – Data Visualisation
Industry:
Real Estate
What we did:
Data Visualisation
My Role:
Workshop Facilitation, User Experience, Interface Design, Interaction Design, Responsive Web Design, Landing Page Design
Client website
Challenge:
Founded in 2019 by the Schindler Group, BuildingMinds stands at the forefront of merging science with real estate, offering a SaaS data monitoring and management system tailored for real estate managers. The company's core focus lies in reporting and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) aspects. BuildingMinds aspires to redefine real estate as a resource-generating industry rather than a resource-consuming one.
Our task involved the organization and presentation of highly intricate data sets focused on making the real estate industry more sustainable. Each of these data sets is complemented by a dedicated landing page designed to provide essential context for a more holistic understanding.
Sustainability Targets
To address the urgent need for climate action, BuildingMinds emphasizes the importance of setting science-based sustainability targets. These objectives delineate decarbonization pathways aligning with the Paris Agreement's ambitions by 2050.
Our design needed to distinguish between energy and carbon emissions, account for different temperature rise pathways and present how the decarbonization targets relate to various building types. It was very hard to translate this level of complexity to smaller screens, but we managed to avoid usability compromises by applying some out-of-the-box interaction patterns.
Emission Factors
At the heart of BuildingMinds' commitment to sustainability lies its utilization of emission factors – coefficients delineating the rate at which various activities release greenhouse gases. Recognizing real estate assets as significant contributors to carbon emissions, BuildingMinds employs real building emission data from diverse sources to calculate emission factors. The continuous work of sustainability experts ensures precise data for each country and asset type, projecting trends up to 2050. Some emission factors are country-specific, while others are globally uniform.
All this complex data needed to be presented in an understandable way and be easy to interact with. The result is a sophisticated system featuring filters, sorting options, trend indicators, and a filterable time frame.
The Benchmark Project
The aim of The Benchmark Project is to foster transparent, sustainable investments within the real estate sector. Despite challenges posed by unclear definitions and varied EU standards, BuildingMinds collects and disseminates essential benchmark figures for compliance. This ongoing initiative draws from diverse public sources, including regulations, scientific studies, and real estate associations.
The data set for this project presented a unique challenge due to the intricate nested structure, with subcategories nested within subcategories. The design required multiple revisions to account for the growth of complexity, as the data is still being collected and amended daily. Addressing the deeply nested structure required the development of sophisticated interaction patterns to ensure easy and intuitive navigation between sections.
Dedicated Landing Pages
Each data set is embedded in a dedicated landing page, crafted in adherence to existing brand and platform guidelines. These landing pages serve as comprehensive gateways, offering users a deeper understanding and broader context surrounding the wealth of information, ensuring that users can easily comprehend and engage with the complexities of real estate data.
Fully Responsive Experience
This project was a rare departure from the mobile-first approach. The depth of information offered by BuildingMinds is optimally experienced on desktop. However, once the large screen sizes were defined, we dedicated the remainder of the sprint to translating these interactions onto mobile devices.
We worked side by side with an amazing development team that supported design with light speed implementation of smooth and elegant solutions that breathe life into complex data.
