As part of NEC Smart Cities, I worked on projects designed to revolutionise urban living by providing citizens, councils, and governments with insightful tools to understand their city-scale environments. Our focus was on delivering digital platforms that enabled informed decision-making by visualising complex data in accessible ways. One of the key products, Spectacle, provided real-time, geospatial visualisation of urban environments.

NEC Smart Cities aimed to empower stakeholders to make better-informed decisions by offering a comprehensive, holistic view of city-wide activities. The products were designed to go deep and narrow, avoiding unnecessary complexity by focusing on a single version that could be used by anyone needing a city-scale view. We envisioned a future where our platforms would serve as foundational tools for understanding the dynamic interplay between people, infrastructure, and urban services over the coming years.

To meet this challenge, I led a human-centered design approach, ensuring that customer needs informed every design decision. The key components of my approach included:

• Spectacle: Spectacle was a web-based application that allowed users to visualise geospatial data across multiple layers. It enabled the visualisation of social events, infrastructure, and other significant datasets, supporting various data types. Users could explore temporal changes, identify correlations, and filter datasets to gain deeper insights into urban trends.
• Kite Platform: Kite was NEC's full-stack digital city platform, integrating hardware and software to support IoT data collection and management at a city-wide level. The platform included the Kite IoT Gateway, designed for connecting sensor devices in both wired and wireless configurations, as well as visualisation tools such as a 2D mapping interface and a 3D immersive Digital City Model.

These platforms helped address challenges like environmental monitoring, mobility management, and city infrastructure oversight, ensuring that users—from local governments to private stakeholders—could draw meaningful insights and act based on real-time, data-driven evidence.

Initially, I served as the Head of Design, leading the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design efforts for both Spectacle and Kite. My focus was on ensuring the platforms met the needs of both technical and non-expert users by simplifying complex data interactions and creating intuitive, visually appealing interfaces for effective data exploration. In this role, I collaborated closely with developers, city planners, and stakeholders to define user needs and translate them into accessible digital products.

Subsequently, I also took on the responsibilities of Head of Delivery. In this expanded role, I was tasked with overseeing the implementation and deployment of these platforms, ensuring that our delivery met high standards of quality and was aligned with user requirements. This included coordinating cross-functional teams, managing timelines, and delivering these platforms directly to customers, ensuring they met high standards of quality and aligned with user requirements.

One of the major challenges was creating a system that could accommodate diverse datasets and users without overwhelming them with complexity. To address this, we focused on modularity and customisability. Spectacle and Kite provided preconfigured datasets as well as the ability to upload custom data, allowing users to tailor the experience to their specific needs. We also used specialised visualisation techniques to correlate different layers, providing users with unique insights into how data points interacted across space and time.

Another challenge was the need to create a unified platform that remained scalable and avoided the pitfalls of bespoke, project-specific solutions. By designing a single platform approach with we managed to maintain focus on the product's core value while leveraging external partnerships to fill any gaps.

The Spectacle and Kite platforms brought real change to the way stakeholders could interact with urban data. By providing a clear and intuitive visualisation of city metrics—such as air quality, pedestrian mobility, and infrastructure usage—we enabled decision-makers to gain actionable insights. For example, visualising air quality data alongside pedestrian movement provided a way to assess urban liveability and inform future planning decisions.

The platforms were well-received by city councils and environmental agencies, who appreciated the ability to visualise and interact with their data in ways that didn't require advanced technical skills.

• Data-Driven Decision Making: The products emphasised the importance of using real-time, geospatial data to make informed decisions about urban environments.
• User-Centred Design: By prioritising user needs and focusing on accessible interfaces, we were able to bring complex data to life for users from diverse backgrounds.
• Scalable and Modular: The platforms were designed to grow alongside city needs, integrating new sensors and data sources without compromising the user experience.