Product Overview
Satellite intelligence meets coastal investment planning
EGREE is a satellite-powered coastal intelligence platform commissioned by the Government of Andhra Pradesh's Department of Forests — designed to bridge environmental conservation with sustainable coastal investment. The platform transforms complex, multi-source data — satellite imagery, socioeconomic indicators, pollution assessments, and weather conditions — into a single, decision-ready interface that empowers investors, planners, and government stakeholders to evaluate coastal zones with clarity and confidence.
Beyond data visualisation, EGREE is an end-to-end investment facilitation system. Once a coastal zone is identified and assessed, the platform guides investors through the full pre-application journey — from reviewing environmental feasibility and downloading compliance-ready reports to formally submitting business interest. Whether the sector is aquaculture, fishing, or salt pan operations, every decision is grounded in ecological intelligence and government compliance.
Institutional Partners
Problem Statement
Scattered data. No single source of verified truth.
Coastal investors and business planners had no single reliable source to understand the environmental, regulatory, and jurisdictional landscape of a specific coastal zone. Information was scattered across multiple government departments — each holding a piece of the picture, but none providing the complete view.
The platform also carried a higher compliance obligation — every data point, guideline, and approval pathway had to align with UNDP standards for coastal environmental management. My role was to take complexity produced by this multi-stakeholder collaboration and translate it into a design system and user-centric application that made all of it accessible, navigable, and actionable.
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01
No department-verified source of truth Investors had no way to know which department held responsibility for a given coastal zone or business type. Data accuracy could not be guaranteed without an officially linked, verified source.
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UNDP compliance was non-negotiable Every data source, environmental standard, and approval pathway had to align with UNDP guidelines for coastal biodiversity and sustainable development. This was a foundational constraint that shaped every design decision.
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Multi-departmental complexity with no unified interface A single establishment decision could involve the Forest Department, Pollution Control Board, Fisheries Authority, and Revenue Department simultaneously — each with separate workflows and approval chains never previously mapped together.
"The design challenge was not just visual — it was structural. How do you present multi-departmental, compliance-heavy, geographically specific information in a way that an investor can understand, trust, and act on?"
Design principle that guided every decision on this project
Design Process
IA before wireframes — domain knowledge first
The most critical work on this project happened before any design tool was opened. I embedded in structured working sessions with Subject Matter Experts spanning environmental science, coastal ecology, socioeconomics, and government administration — building a complete domain-sector dependency map that became the foundation for every navigation and content decision.
Product Screens
The homepage, domain intelligence view, and sector detail
Three screens from the delivered platform — the public knowledge management homepage, the domain-level satellite map with environmental data layers, and the sector overview with statistics, graphical view, and related documents.
Design Decisions
The structural choices that made complexity navigable
Core / Significant / Other domain hierarchy
Environmental domains were classified into three tiers — Core (Hydrology, Ecology, Socioeconomics), Significant (Air Quality, Soil, Waste, Risk), and Other (Geology, Marine, Coastal Vulnerability) — giving investors a clear signal of regulatory weight without reading dense policy documents.
Satellite map as the primary entry point
Rather than filtering by text menus, the primary interaction was map-first — click a coastal zone, get the full environmental picture. This anchored every data decision to real geography and made the platform feel like a spatial intelligence tool, not a document repository.
Accordion-first information disclosure
Statistics, legend, graphical view, related documents, and external links were all collapsed by default, with the map and domain overview visible on load. This prevented information overload for first-time investors while keeping all data one tap away for expert users.
Knowledge repository as a trust anchor
Every investment decision needs a paper trail. The repository — articles, research papers, EIA reports, acts, standards, and expert referrals — was structured as a department-verified source, not a generic document library. That verification status was surfaced prominently in the UI.
Outcomes
From data silos to a unified coastal intelligence system
The EGREE platform launched in 2019 as a live, publicly accessible system — the first of its kind for coastal biodiversity management in Andhra Pradesh, successfully delivering on all three founding mandates: environmental protection, investment facilitation, and UNDP compliance.
Reflection
What this project taught me
EGREE was the most structurally complex project I have worked on — not because of the interface, but because of the knowledge system underneath it. Designing for a multi-stakeholder, compliance-governed, ecologically sensitive domain taught me that great UX in government contexts is primarily about trust architecture: how do you make people believe that the information they are acting on is accurate, current, and officially authorised?
The most valuable thing I did on this project was not a wireframe — it was the weeks spent in structured sessions with SMEs, building the domain-sector dependency map before touching any design tool. In complex government systems, rushing to wireframes before the IA is fully validated is the single most expensive mistake a designer can make.
Working directly with UNDP representatives also expanded my understanding of international compliance frameworks and how they intersect with design decisions — an experience that has informed how I approach regulated systems ever since.