WIONIQ IQ
A data-driven platform designed to bring greater oversight, efficiency, and clarity to water networks.
For more than 25 years, WIONIQ IQ (formerly TeleControlNet) has helped organizations across the Netherlands manage the pumps that move groundwater, rainwater and sewage.
Sensors across thousands of locations collect real-time data, such as water levels, while pumps operate automatically based on configured thresholds. Administrators use dashboards and graphs to monitor data and configure views for users, while field technicians rely on the map to identify alarms and respond to issues on-site.
Over the years, new features, roles, and data sources kept being added, making the product powerful but increasingly complex.
The redesign aimed to rethink how the product presents information and bring it into a new era without losing the depth and real-world value that made it work.
year
2024
timeframe
Ongoing
tools
Figma · Claude · ChatGPT
category
Product Design
Problem
How do you modernize a 25-year-old product without losing the complexity that makes it powerful?
The client initially requested a visual refresh to give WIONIQ IQ a modern look, attract new customers, and strengthen its position in tenders. However, the challenges went beyond the interface. Over the years, new features had been added incrementally, without a consistent approach to the overall product experience. This resulted in complex workflows, information-heavy screens, and legacy patterns that made the platform difficult to navigate and use. A few areas stood out:
Navigation — Pages lacked a clear structure, making it confusing for users to find their way around the platform.
Widget creation — Creating and configuring widgets was too complex for regular users, leaving internal staff to do it for them.
Dashboards — Tabs functioned as individual pages rather than flexible dashboards, limiting how users could organize and monitor their data.
Alarm Schedule — Configuring alarm schedules required navigating multiple pages, making the process unnecessarily fragmented.
A visual refresh alone wouldn't solve these issues. The challenge was to make WIONIQ IQ more intuitive and consistent while preserving the depth and flexibility required for real-world infrastructure monitoring.
Understanding the product and its users
About a year and a half into the project, I took on Product Owner responsibilities for 30% of my time. The project needed clearer priorities, better-structured user stories, and stronger communication between stakeholders and the development team.
A visit to the Netherlands gave me the opportunity to meet stakeholders in person, visit operational sites, and see how the product supported real-world water infrastructure monitoring.
Combining these firsthand insights with my design and Product Owner responsibilities helped me better understand user needs, identify key pain points, and connect product decisions with operational requirements.
Solution
Instead of only refreshing the visuals, the redesign focused on improving usability, consistency, and flexibility across WIONIQ IQ. Alongside a modern interface that helps the product compete in tenders, the work covered four key areas:
Navigation — A clearer information architecture with logically grouped pages, helping users navigate the platform and understand where they are.
Widget creation — A simpler, more intuitive configuration flow that allows users to create and customize widgets independently, reducing their reliance on internal support.
Dashboards — A more flexible dashboard experience, replacing tabs that functioned as separate pages with customizable spaces where users can organize and monitor their data.
Alarm Schedule — A complete redesign that brings functionality previously spread across multiple pages into one place, making alarm schedules easier to manage.
Beyond these improvements, I established and maintained the design system, including reusable components and design tokens, to improve consistency across the application and support future development. I also took on Product Owner responsibilities, translating stakeholder needs into user stories and acceptance criteria, prioritizing work, and coordinating with stakeholders and the development team.
Together, these efforts aimed to create a more modern and usable platform while laying a stronger foundation for its continued development
Flexible dashboards and widget creation
Previously, dashboards functioned more like individual pages, giving users limited control over how they organized their data.
The redesigned dashboards provide flexible spaces where users can arrange relevant widgets and monitor information across their locations. I also designed a visual widget creation flow that lets users configure widgets, preview their results, edit them, and reuse them across dashboards without relying on internal staff.
Dashboard
Adding widget
Making alarm scheduling easier to manage
The Alarm Schedule module determines who receives notifications when specific alarms are triggered. Users connect watch groups and alarm groups to alarm triggers to define who receives SMS or email notifications.
Added to the product over time, the module prioritized functionality over usability. Configuration was spread across multiple pages, the setup flow lacked clarity, and the calendar view was difficult to interpret. Because users typically configured schedules only once a year, they often had to relearn the process.
The redesign brings the configuration into one place, with clear tabs for navigating between settings and a recognizable calendar view for reviewing watch group schedules. Users can now check their configurations more easily and understand how their schedules are set up.
Calendar
Outcome
What started as a visual redesign evolved into a broader product improvement effort, combining UX/UI design with Product Owner responsibilities.
The project strengthened my approach to product design, understanding complex domains, identifying meaningful problems, balancing user needs with operational requirements, and collaborating with stakeholders and developers to shape practical solutions.
The biggest takeaway was that modernizing a product with 25 years of history requires more than a new look. It means rethinking how the product is structured, how its workflows connect, and how people interact with it.
The goal wasn't simply to modernize WIONIQ IQ's interface, but to build a stronger foundation for its continued evolution.
see also
