Oli Mower
Umbra Space — Product Design

Canopy App

Making satellite data truly accessible and on‑demand.

Canopy App — full-bleed cover shot
Company
Umbra Space
Role
End to end UX research and design. UX Engineering and prototyping
Team
Lead product designer (self), Product manager, software engineering, flight software lead
Timeline
2025 Q1 – Q3

Umbra Space, a leading provider of space imaging, set out to make satellite data truly accessible and on‑demand. Canopy was created to let users get imagery without the antiquated hurdles of phone calls and spreadsheet orders.

Users

US Government defense and intelligence agencies, sovereign nations, image resellers, analytics companies, journalists, scientific researchers.

Problem

Users struggled to order from the platform and use technical parameters. The app needed a polished, consistent design and the MVP missed key features—like ordering at scale. Customers leaned on our support team due to shortcomings.

Goals

Steer Canopy from an MVP to a fully-featured product. Introduce new functionality and offerings to help serve customer’s missions. Improve usability and iterate on the design to make the app a joy to use.

02

Impact

42%
Increase in user engagement
Users increased their time using the app on mobile and tablet devices.
1.3x
More self service tasks
Monthly orders went up as users adopted self-service bulk ordering features.
89%
Positive user feedback
Users spoke positively about the improved usability and additional features.
03

Research

Working closely with the Product Manager, I interviewed customers to learn what they were trying to achieve and where they were experiencing friction with the beta platform, building personas around the different user types and their goals and frustrations. I used those findings to map user journeys and service blueprints, then packaged the research into a report to build stakeholder buy-in for the priorities that followed.

  • Interviews & personas — direct customer conversations shaped how we grouped user types
  • User journeys & service blueprints — visualized problem areas across the customer journey
  • Research report — shared findings and recommended priorities with stakeholders
Interview personas created from user research
Interview personas created from user research
User journeys and survey data
User journeys and survey data from customer research
Research findings report
Research report documenting findings and recommended priorities
04

An improved tasking system

Redesigned the core tasking flow end-to-end — selecting an area of interest, reviewing available imaging opportunities, and confirming an order — replacing the MVP's fragmented, multi-step process with a single guided flow.

Tasking map with spotlight and AOI
Tasking map interface with spotlight and area of interest selection
Opportunities and parameters interface
Opportunities interface showing available tasking options
Tasking checkout and confirmation
MVP tasking checkout interface for order confirmation
05

Advanced parameters and educational content

Added advanced tasking parameters for power users, paired with inline educational tooltips so less experienced customers could understand technical options without leaving the flow.

Advanced parameters interface with educational tooltips
06

A bulk ordering system

Our larger customers relied on our internal tasking specialists to place bulk orders on their behalf, since they had too many targets to order through the self-service system. I harnessed the internal APIs our engineering team had built and designed a customer-facing interface that let these users order at scale directly, taking strain off our internal team.

CSV bulk upload interface
CSV bulk upload interface for large-scale tasking
Validation feedback for bulk uploads
Error handling and validation feedback for bulk upload data
Range validation interaction
Validation feedback when data is outside acceptable range
07

A new sidebar navigation

Users had expressed annoyance with the previous navigation, so I redesigned it to be more user-friendly. The new sidebar navigation gives users easy access to different sections of the app and consolidates the top nav bar, which previously held account settings and the changelog.

Desktop sidebar navigation with consolidated controls
Mobile navigation optimized for touch and small screens
08

Mobile optimized pages

Reworked key flows for smaller screens so the full tasking experience feels native on mobile and tablet, rather than a scaled-down version of the desktop layout.

Mobile optimized interface
Mobile-optimized pages for improved user experience on smaller devices
Next project

SatOps Dashboard