How we designed a unified data intelligence platform for one of the world's most ambitious smart city projects — enabling 14 domains, 60+ data products, and real-time governance at a scale never attempted before in the region.
Governance design accounted for 25% of total effort — reflecting the complexity of building access controls that serve both technical operators and executive decision-makers without compromising on usability at either end.
NEOM had a data challenge unlike any in the region — a city being built from scratch, generating petabytes of data across energy grids, autonomous mobility, health systems, and urban planning. No legacy, no playbook. We built the UX framework from zero.
We translated complex data mesh principles — domain ownership, data-as-a-product, self-serve infrastructure, federated governance — into an interface language that non-technical stakeholders could navigate confidently.
Five distinct user archetypes — data engineers, domain owners, data analysts, governance officers, and city executives — each needed a different information architecture. We designed a single platform that served all five without compromise.
With 60+ data products across 14 domains, findability was mission-critical. We designed a catalogue system with semantic search, lineage mapping, and contextual metadata that made discovery intuitive rather than exhausting.
NEOM's operational data required live dashboards — energy consumption, mobility flows, environmental sensors. We designed 18 custom chart components built for data density without visual overload, optimised for both war-room displays and analyst workstations.
120+ production-ready components delivered in Figma with full dev-handoff specifications, interaction states, dark mode, and RTL support — ensuring the design scales as NEOM's data infrastructure grows alongside the city itself.
Scope validated against NEOM Technology & Digital Enterprise requirements. Design engagement completed 2023–2024.
When a platform serves 14 domains, 60+ data products, and 5 user archetypes simultaneously, the designer's job isn't to simplify the data — it's to simplify the path to it. NEOM Data Mesh proved that information architecture is the most undervalued discipline in enterprise UX.
Access control and data lineage aren't backend concerns — they're user experience challenges. When governance is invisible and frictionless, adoption accelerates. When it's bolted on as an afterthought, organisations build shadow IT. We designed governance first, not last.
A city generating real-time data from autonomous vehicles, energy grids, and environmental sensors cannot be served by a patchwork of tools. A unified design system wasn't a deliverable — it was the prerequisite. Without it, the platform would fracture as fast as it grew.
NEOM is Saudi Arabia's $500 billion flagship smart city initiative — a 170km linear city being constructed from scratch in the Tabuk Province. It represents one of the most ambitious urban technology projects in human history, integrating AI, renewable energy, autonomous transport, and advanced data infrastructure into a single urban system. The Data Mesh platform was central to making that intelligence layer coherent and accessible across every city domain.
If we can design data intelligence for one of the world's most complex city projects, we can design it for yours. Let's find out what's possible.