MAPS

DESKTOP

MOBILE

Redesigning a climate data explorer to be map-first, accessible and built for scale.

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Ambee Maps v2 — global air quality heatmap centred on Bengaluru

ROLE

Visual Designer

TEAM

Era

Nishat

PLATFORM

Desktop and mobile

STATUS

Live

CONTEXT

Ambee is a climate data company that sells environmental APIs to enterprises, developers and research teams. Maps is where that data comes to life, air quality, pollen, wildfires, all visualised on a heatmap.

The product served two kinds of people. Users who came to explore climate data for their location, and a sales team who used it to demo Ambee’s capabilities to potential customers. For both to get what they needed, the map had to feel trustworthy and easy to navigate.

It had too much going on. The map was getting squeezed, the navigation was confusing, and the dark theme made data hard to read. V2 fixed the hierarchy, brought the map front and centre, unified the navigation into four clean tabs, and added a full natural disaster layer on top.

THE PROBLEM

If the map is the hero, why is it getting so little space?

V1 had a lot going on. The map shared the screen with a sidebar, a full-width timeline, and an API banner. There was a lot of information competing for attention at once. The dark theme also made some of the data labels and controls harder to read than they needed to be.

Why this mattered:

The sales team was using this in pitches. If the map felt confusing, that reflected on the data. And if you don’t trust the data, you don’t buy the API.

Tree, Weed and Grass pollen were just floating inside the sidebar with no grouping logic. If you didn’t already know what you were looking for, the UI wasn’t going to help you find it.

THE REDESIGN

The map gets the whole screen now.

Everything else shows up only when you need it. The data card appears when you search for a location. The timeline expands when you hit play. Nothing competes for attention when there is nothing to show yet.

NAVIGATION

Four tabs replaced the whole sidebar.

Air Quality, Tree Pollen, Weed Pollen, Grass Pollen. Same level, same weight. The confusing sidebar hierarchy is just gone.

DATA CARD

The number first.
Everything else on demand.

AQI and severity up front. Full pollutant breakdown, PM2.5, PM10, NO2, O3, one tap away. You get what you came for first.

DISASTER LAYER

A new icon system for natural disasters.

A natural disaster layer was added in V2.2.0, earthquakes, wildfires, cyclones, floods. The full icon set was designed from scratch.

Scope

What didn’t ship

A 3D globe, wind layer and temperature heatmap were scoped for V2.2. It didn’t move forward. These things happen.

OUTCOME

The day it went live, Maddy (CTO) and Akshay (COO) sent this.

Ambee Maps — before and after comparison

Ambee Maps — launch announcement from the team

A non-designer describing a UX outcome without being asked. That’s the one that stuck.

This is still live. You can open it right now.

2024

3.4K

active users