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Autonomous Digital Twin Building

Persona -

Facility Manager

I know Floor 8 has high energy consumption, but I have no idea which part of the floor or which equipment is causing it.

Persona -

Building Engineer

It takes me 20 minutes to answer a simple question: ‘How many VAVs do we have in the executive offices?’ I have to open 3 different systems.

Persona -

Operations Manager

When executives ask about building performance, I spend more time explaining the data than actually showing insights.

Let me walk you through one of my most meaningful UX projects — Autonomous Digital Twin building management platform. What made this project exciting wasn’t the 3D graphics or the technology. It was the opportunity to fundamentally reimagine how people understand complex building data.

Team and Timeline Overview

Garry Kapoor

Connected Buildings

Prabhat Ranajan

Chief Technology Officer

7 Weeks

Timeline

01 - WHAT DID WE

IDENTIFIED?

  • PAIN-POINTS
  • EXPECTATIONS

When I first met with facility managers and building engineers, one thing became very clear: They were drowning in tools — dashboards, PDFs, spreadsheets, asset databases, BMS systems. To answer even a simple question like ‘Why is Floor 8 consuming so much energy?‘.

They had to open 4–5 systems, decode asset IDs, and mentally map numbers onto a floor plan. I watched a facility manager spend 20 minutes trying to find one VAV unit, and the entire process relied on his memory. I realized the true problem wasn’t the interface. It was…

  • Heavy cognitive load
  • No spatial context to interpret data
  • Slow to derive insights
  • Hard to communicate building issues to executives
  • Time wasted navigating interfaces, not solving problems

Dashboards force users to:

* Interpret numbers * Translate them mentally into spatial context * Remember asset IDs * Bridge gaps between tools

Hard to communicate

Executives glaze over when I show spreadsheets

Complex Navigation

I can't see the big picture, just isolated metrics

EXPECATION

How might we make building data feel as natural to explore as walking through the actual building?

02 - RESEARCH & DISCOVERY

OBSERVED?

  • PAIN-POINTS
  • PATTERNS
  • INSIGHTS

I conducted interviews, contextual inquiries, and workflow mapping sessions. Here’s what we uncovered:

PATTERNS EMERGED:

  • Users performed 7–12 clicks per insight
  • They constantly switched between tabs
  • They had to remember asset naming conventions
  • Executives couldn’t interpret the dashboards they were shown
  • Reporting took hours every week

 

The biggest insight was this:

Users weren’t struggling because they lacked data. They were struggling because the data wasn’t connected to the real physical space they work in.

KEY INSIGHTS:

Users don’t need more data. They need it embedded in space, in a way their brain naturally understands.

03 - UX OPPORTUNITY

COGNITIVE LOAD PROBLEM

Interpret numbers which results in decision fatigue

Translate them mentally into spatial context – slow analysis

Remember asset IDs led to mistakes and miscommunication

Bridge gaps between tools, creates onboarding friction

OPPORTUNITY:

So I reframed the challenge:

What if users could explore data the same way they explore a real building? And what if they could simply ask the system questions in plain English?

Instead of forcing people to think like software, we let the software think like people.

04 - UX STRATEGY

DESIGN PRINCIPLES

Natural interaction – Ask questions in plain English, not navigate menus.

Spatial First – Visualize data where it lives—in rooms, floors, buildings.

Progressive Reveal – Show just what matters at each level—building → floor → room → asset.

Instant Clarity – Use color, animation, and motion to highlight patterns and anomalies.

Zero Learning Curve – Make the experience “just work” for anyone, from engineers to executives.