Modernizing large-scale legacy systems for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality

Role: UX Lead · Domain: Government Platform: Desktop Enterprise Web Applications

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) relied on two major legacy systems—CCEDS (Consolidated Compliance and Enforcement Data System) and STARS (State of Texas Air Reporting System)—to support regulatory compliance, enforcement, and reporting.

These applications were critical to daily operations but had grown complex, fragmented, and difficult to use over time.
The goal was to modernize the user experience without introducing new business rules, while ensuring continuity for existing users.

Context

The Problem

TCEQ users—including regulators, analysts, and administrative staff—worked within systems that:

• Required excessive navigation and screen switching

• Relied heavily on pop-ups and modal workflows

• Lacked consistency across modules

• Increased training time and user frustration

Because these were mission-critical government systems, usability improvements had to be made without disrupting established regulatory processes.

My Role

As UX Lead, I was responsible for guiding the redesign strategy across both applications.

• Led UX research and discovery efforts

• Conducted user interviews and contextual inquiries

• Designed and iterated low- and high-fidelity wireframes

• Established UX standards and reusable patterns

• Collaborated closely with developers and product stakeholders

• Ensured designs aligned with accessibility and usability best practices

Research & Key Insights

Research focused on understanding real-world usage patterns within complex regulatory workflows.

Methods

• Dozens of interviews with end users across roles

• Contextual inquiry and legacy application walkthroughs

• User surveys to identify pain points and inefficiencies

• Review of support issues and workflow bottlenecks
  

Key Insights

• Users spent more time navigating than completing tasks

• The same actions were repeated across multiple screens

• Pop-ups disrupted user flow and increased cognitive load

• Inconsistent layouts made learning and recall difficult

“I know what I need to do—but the system makes me work to get there.”

Design Strategy

The strategy centered on reducing interaction cost without altering core functionality.

Core Principles

• Minimize the number of screens required to complete tasks

• Reduce reliance on pop-ups and modal dialogs

• Establish consistent layouts and interaction patterns

• Reuse components across CCEDS and STARS

• Maintain familiarity while improving clarity

This approach ensured usability improvements were incremental, safe, and adoptable.

Design Execution

Key Design Decisions

• Consolidated multi-step workflows into fewer, clearer screens

• Introduced consistent page structures across modules

• Grouped related information to improve scanability

• Applied modern visual hierarchy while preserving data density

• Created hundreds of wireframes to support phased rollout

Over 300 wireframes were produced to cover variations across workflows and user roles.