The campus used to burn fuel just to make heat. Now it moves heat instead, and uses a fraction of the energy doing it. But nobody can tell that by looking at a machine on a wall. Thermaview is what shows it. You look at the screen, you know it's working, you know what it's saving.
Role
UI/UX Designer, sole designer, research to handoff
Platform
Embedded display, always-on, no interaction
Type
IoT Dashboard
Status
Live at Zoho's campus
PROBLEM
Six metrics had to fit on one screen, with only three seconds to make sense of them
Six live engineering metrics had to sit on one fixed, always-on screen. No scrolling, no second screen, no interaction. Anyone walking past had about three seconds to understand it.
The real problem wasn't fitting six metrics on a screen. It was figuring out which one actually answers the question in the viewer's head.
SOLUTION
I decided the screen should lead with value, not raw data
Instead of showing every metric with equal weight, the screen leads with the two numbers that answer what people actually want to know: is the system working, and is it worth it. COP and cumulative savings sit up front. Everything else supports them.
key ux Decisions
I realized a number on its own doesn't mean anything without a shape around it
5.5 on its own tells you nothing. Good, average, bad, no way to know. I put a gauge behind the COP number so it sits inside a visible range, keeping the precise figure for anyone who wants it while giving everyone else an instant read on direction. I tried a plain number card first. It was clean and correct, and it still failed the three second test, because people had to stop and think before it meant anything to them.
I moved savings to the front because that's what people actually care about
Cumulative savings became one of the two headline metrics because it's the one number a facility manager or a visiting stakeholder actually cares about. Engineering efficiency is abstract to most people. Money saved isn't. I originally placed it lower, as a secondary output rather than a headline. Moving it up changed the whole screen. It stopped being an engineer's readout and became something anyone could understand without an explanation.
impact
The dashboard is now live and running at Zoho's Tenkasi campus
The dashboard sits on top of a heat pump system that replaced fuel-based heating, so the screen is telling an efficiency story on two levels at once. It's live and always-on at the campus.
First-glance recall
Savings became the remembered metric, once it carried the strongest visual weight on the screen.
10%
10%
Recognition speed
The energy-impact story landed almost immediately after savings was made the dominant figure.
0sec
0sec
Fewer questions asked
Fewer visitors stopped to ask what the numbers meant, once the screen explained itself.
<0%
<0%
Note - These numbers come from walk-by readability testing and display reviews with engineers and non-technical viewers
REFLECTION
This project taught me that clarity matters more than interaction
This project showed me UX isn't always about interaction. There's nothing to click, nothing to tap through. The screen's only job is to be clear the moment someone looks at it, so they already know if the system's doing its job.
