Makersite: Lenovo's Interactive Configurator

By designing an interactive pre-sales tool, we empowered sales representatives to balance price, performance, and environmental impact, increasing client conversions and securing valuable contracts.

Role

UX/UI Design

Project Overview

Problem

Lenovo wanted to integrate Makersite's platform to support its sustainability initiatives, including providing environmental data to its customers.

However, a key gap emerged: their sales teams struggled to efficiently access and present detailed carbon impact data during pre-sales discussions. The platform was originally built for sustainability experts, making it inaccessible for non-technical users such as salespeople. This inefficiency limited Lenovo’s ability to close deals and compete in sustainability-driven markets.

My Role

Led the design process, collaborating with a product manager and development leads to deliver a scalable, user-friendly tool. My focus was on simplifying workflows, ensuring visual clarity, and making complex data accessible for non-technical users.

Here’s what the sales team’s process looked like before we introduced the solution:

Manual Workflow – a time-consuming and inefficient process reliant on sustainability experts.

This manual process increases delays, reduces team efficiency, and limits sales success, leading to lost opportunities in a competitive market.

Business Obectives

Secure a large contract with Lenovo by providing a solution that enabled efficient and accurate carbon footprint calculations.
Create a reusable tool for future demos and customer acquisition, ultimately increasing conversion rates and expanding Makersite’s customer base.

Solution

We developed an interactive configurator tailored to Lenovo's pre-sales process.

The tool simplified workflows and allowed sales teams to:

Generate actionable carbon footprint data quickly and independently.
Balance cost, performance, and environmental impact effortlessly.
Share visual, client-ready reports to drive decision-making and close deals faster.

Simplified Carbon Footprint Calculations

The configurator streamlined carbon footprint assessments, reducing reliance on experts and improving efficiency.

Increased Market Competitiveness

Lenovo positioned itself as a leader in sustainability, gaining a competitive edge and boosting client acquisition.

Simplified carbon footprint calculations for sales reps

Lenovo met clients' sustainability expectations, building stronger relationships.

Helped Lenovo secure long-term deals in eco-conscious markets

Sales calls were much easier

Conversion rates increased

Easier monitoring
process

Single source
of truth

Increased investor engagement

Research Approach

To identify pain points, we conducted interviews with Lenovo's sales representatives and sustainability experts and observed how they interacted with existing tools.

During the research phase, I noticed that sales reps felt overwhelmed by the lack of tools that could provide quick, actionable data. Instead, they were forced to consult sustainability experts, creating bottlenecks and slowing down the pre-sales process.

Key Observations:

Sales teams lacked direct access to Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) data, creating bottlenecks.
Reliance on experts delayed workflows, slowing down the quoting process.
Sales representatives had limited expertise in sustainability, making it difficult for them to effectively communicate carbon impact to clients.
A simple, visual tool was essential to communicate sustainability metrics effectively.

Design Process

Considerations

My goal was to ensure that sales representatives, who lacked technical expertise, could navigate hundreds of configuration options without feeling overwhelmed.

Simplified Navigation: I introduced tables for better data visibility and drop-downs to maintain a clean, user-friendly interface, balancing simplicity with functionality.
Dynamic Visual Feedback: Interactive pie and bar charts that updated in real-time as users adjusted configurations.
Exportable Results: Clear, shareable PDF reports to streamline client communication.
Future Scalability: The tool's architecture ensured it could adapt to new product components or parameters.
Custom Carbon Targets: Although not implemented in the initial release, I proposed a feature to allow clients to set specific carbon footprint targets, enabling sales teams to offer tailored solutions based on client sustainability goals.

User Flow

Step 1: The flow begins with fundamental parameters necessary for the configuration.
Step 2: Component configuration—adjust parameters and instantly view carbon impact data.
Step 3: Lifecycle Adjustments—users can fine-tune and recalculate lifecycle parameters, such as transportation or usage phase data.

To bring the flow to life, I started exploring different options to present the data effectively. My focus was on balancing simplicity with functionality, testing approaches like tables, accordions, and visual groupings.

Mid-Fi Sketches

This sketch provided clear distinctions between parts but lacked the ability to support deeper levels of selection.

I initially included a supplier column for clarity, but later removed it since each SKU type is always associated with a single supplier.

I introduced radio buttons to simplify selection and save space with a single chart toggle. However, this highlighted the need for scalable solutions for managing large datasets.

I introduced a step-by-step flow by separating the initial parameters screen, enabling the system to generate default AI selections for the main configuration screen. This approach simplified navigation for non-technical users while ensuring accuracy with AI-generated defaults.

As testing progressed, users provided critical feedback that helped me refine the design:

Based on user feedback, tables emerged as the preferred option for their flexibility, clarity, and ability to efficiently manage large, scalable datasets.
Added clear labels to differentiate AI-generated defaults from user inputs. This resolved confusion around automated suggestions, improving trust in the system's recommendations.
Bold text indicated user selection as opposed to the defaults.
Grouped related parameters to reduce cognitive load: Organizing parameters into logical groups improved visual hierarchy, making navigation more intuitive and helping users focus on relevant inputs.
Enabled saved configurations to be named. This allowed sales teams to save time by revisiting and iterating on previous configurations, ensuring a seamless workflow for recurring tasks.

Final Screens

I worked closely with both front-end and back-end teams to bring the configurator to life, ensuring the seamless integration of the UI with back-end calculations.

Designing for clarity meant simplifying complex workflows without sacrificing the granularity of the data. Seeing users interact with the final tool and hearing their feedback was incredibly rewarding.

A table view displaying previously created configurations, with an option to add a new one, allowing users to manage and revisit their work easily.

The initial configuration screen where users select the product and set key parameters like name, type, and other baseline options to start building their configuration.

The core screen where users select product components, with real-time carbon impact data visualized in interactive pie charts for each part of the configuration.

A screen focused on adjusting lifecycle parameters such as geography, with updated pie charts reflecting the environmental impact of the configuration based on these factors.

Impact

The configurator delivered measurable success for both Lenovo and Makersite.

Strengthened Lenovo's pre-sales capabilities and competitive positioning while showcasing Makersite's value and winning a key contract.

Enabled Lenovo's sales teams to generate faster, data-driven proposals and reduced reliance on sustainability experts.

Allowed Makersite to reuse the tool for demos, expanding market reach and unlocking future enterprise clients.

The next steps focused on measuring the configurator's effectiveness by gathering feedback from more users and tracking key metrics, such as time saved in quoting. We also aimed to expand the tool's capabilities by adding more granular environmental data and the proposed “Custom Carbon Targets” feature for enhanced flexibility.

Learnings

This project reinforced an essential design lesson for me: seemingly simple solutions can create meaningful impact. Designing for non-technical users pushed me to focus on clarity and accessibility without losing sight of complexity. Small refinements—like differentiating AI defaults and grouping options—proved to have a significant impact on user experience.

Ultimately, this project reminded me that great design is about enabling progress, solving real problems, and creating tools that empower users to succeed.