Nuclear Data Accessibility
Industry
Atomic Energy
Client
UNICEF - IAEA Aris
Service
Experience Design
Date
International Atomic Energy Agency – A UX Case Study
Business Problem
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) needed a modern, secure, and intuitive digital platform to streamline advanced reactor information sharing across 171 member states. The goal? Equip energy ministries, research scientists, and regulatory bodies with real-time access to design, status, and compliance data of nuclear reactor technologies.
Why now? The prior process—static PDFs fetched manually from internal servers—was riddled with redundancy, inaccessibility, and compliance risk.
"The platform had to support sensitive, scientific documentation in a way that’s clear, traceable, and audit-ready.” – Project Stakeholder, IAEA
The Design Process: From Chaos to Clarity
“We weren’t just designing for efficiency. We were designing for global trust in nuclear data.”
Journey begins not on a whiteboard, but in the inboxes of frustrated reactor vendors and overwhelmed IAEA admins—both drowning in document versions, contradictory comments, and compliance uncertainties.
Stage 1: Discover – “It’s all in email, and nothing is in order.”
What We Found:
Submissions were manually compiled in Word documents.
PDF attachments were sent via email for review.
Comments and revisions were made offline, creating version chaos.
There was no dashboard, no timeline, and no traceability.
Real Quote:
“Sometimes I had 3 versions of the same file with different comments. I didn’t know which one to send for approval.” – Vendor, DSR Submitter
Our Action:
We initiated a discovery sprint involving:
Heuristic audit of existing flows
Vendor journey workshops, where we sat with the Vendor and DSR submitters on screensharing calls to understand
Admin job-shadowing sessions
Mapping pain points across multiple stakeholders
Stage 2: Define – “Let’s turn that chaos into clarity.”
With the mess mapped, we anchored the problem as:
“How might we streamline the nuclear data submission and review process so that users can see, comment, and trust every interaction in one unified platform?”
User Pain Points
From initial research and internal feedback, we surfaced the top 3 pain points:
Confusing Navigation
Legacy systems provided no clear pathways. "I never know where I land after I click!" – Vendor Analyst
Manual PDF Submissions
Lengthy, error-prone Word docs emailed back and forth. "We always lost track of the latest version."
Lack of Comment Traceability
Comments and revisions were buried in email threads. "It's impossible to align across departments."
Constraints We Faced
Legacy Dependency: Reactors still housed in static PDF views.
No Unified Database UI: Users had to switch tabs, emails, and file types.
Approval Sensitivities: Global stakeholders demanded change without friction.
Research & Insights: Digging Deep Into the Atomic Experience
Methods Used
Heuristic Evaluation
Applied Nielsen’s 10 Heuristics to the legacy system:
Visibility of System Status: No progress indicators → users got lost.
Consistency & Standards: Forms used inconsistent field names vs reactor glossary.
User Control & Freedom: No “back” logic; system forced reloads and tab switching.
User Personas
Time-Crunched Tina (Vendor Lead)
Needs fast form access
Values clear approval steps
Frustrated by “missing back buttons”
Analytical Arjun (IAEA Admin)
Approves data from 30+ vendors
Wants version control + timeline view
Needs high traceability and structured layout
Competitive Audit
Benchmarked nuclear and non-nuclear form-based systems (e.g., FDA dashboards, SAP ERP) and identified best-in-class patterns in:
Commenting systems
Role-based dashboards
Version tracking and audit trails
Stage 3: Design – “What if the form guided them like a GPS?”
Here’s where the real design magic happened—backed by storytelling and systematic thinking.
Foundation: Sketches & Conceptual Layouts
Designed stepper navigation to replace 20-page scrolling forms
Grouped fields into 10 logical sections based on real reactor data
Right-side anchored comment panel created a real-time annotation system
Designed conditional flows: different steps are visible based on user role
Story-Driven Design Decision:
“Users need to feel guided—not overwhelmed. The stepper isn’t just a feature; it’s a mental map.”
Instead of a linear, never-ending form, we used the stepper like a choose-your-own-adventure path. Users knew where they were and where they had to go—instantly reducing anxiety and abandonment.
A collective representation of all the comments on the right tab of the screen, which on hover highlights the text field and the red indicator. The comments shown on the right are with respect to the selected stepper on the left.
Prototype Testing – “It’s like a conversation instead of a task.”
We created interactive prototypes and tested with:
6 vendor leads across 4 countries
4 IAEA admins
2 accessibility consultants
What we learned:
Hover-triggered tooltips caused cognitive friction → replaced with collapsible knowledge cards
Users didn’t notice unresolved comments → added red dot indicators
Timeline view with clear status (Created, Reviewed, Approved) helped admins manage queue
Key Insight:
“It feels like the system knows what I need before I ask.” – Arjun, IAEA Admin
Stage 4: Build & Refine – “This isn’t a form anymore—it’s a system.”
Partnering with developers, we embedded:
Modular UI components: All form fields, tags, and comment containers were reusable.
Role-based views: Submitters saw a clean form; reviewers saw version history + comments.
Audit Trail API: Every comment, edit, and approval was logged chronologically.
We conducted:
Accessibility tests (WCAG 2.1)
Load testing with 50+ simultaneous submissions
Final walkthrough with UNICEF ethics and IAEA legal teams
Outcome
From an inbox full of confusion, we delivered a context-aware, audit-ready, and role-smart portal for global nuclear collaboration. The journey was never about UI alone—it was about giving trust, visibility, and control back to the people who needed it most.
Key Insight
“Users struggled with content navigation and traceability because the interface opened forms in new tabs with no context or breadcrumb trail.”
– UX Field Note from Vendor Onboarding Workshop
Why This Matters
Poor heuristics = cognitive overload.
Fixing just “Consistency” and “Error Prevention” translated to a 70% drop-off reduction in task abandonment.
Critical Design Decision
We traded in-line inline pop-ups for a right-anchored comment log.
This reduced visual chaos and improved multi-section visibility—based on testing with 12 stakeholders.
Heuristic Fixes
Inconsistency Fixed
Before: Terms like “Vendor” and “Submitter” used interchangeably.
After: Unified terminology across form and timeline.
Lack of Visibility Fixed
Before: No indication of form status.
After: Status badges ("Created", "Reviewed", "Approved") with date/time stamps added.
DSR Status Timeline
Transparent tracking for version history, reviewer identity, and submission status
Outcomes
User Feedback: “I don’t have to guess anymore. It’s all there.”
Support Tickets: Down 50% post-launch
Data Revisions: 35% faster comment-to-approval cycle
Regulatory Confidence: Endorsements from 7 major nuclear agencies
Lessons & Scalability: Future-Proofing Government UX
🧪 What Failed (and What We Learned)
Users wanted a back button!
Our assumption that new-tab logic negated the need for back buttons was flawed.
✅ Fixed: We added breadcrumb navigation and “Close Tab” reminders.
Tooltip overload
Too many hover actions distracted users
✅ Fixed: We clustered tags into collapsible “Knowledge Cards”
Leadership Insight
“This stepper-comment-audit model is now the standard for all internal UN data systems.”
— Lead Architect, IAEA Digital Division
🧠 Final Thought
This wasn't just a redesign. It was a complete shift in how the world’s nuclear watchdog thinks, shares, and secures data—with UX at the core.
