INBEE is a web platform and mobile app that digitize every stage of bridge census and inspection. It translates the Italian bridge guidelines into guided field workflows, automatically computes each structure’s Attention Classes (CdA) and prepares interoperable data for AINOP, the national public infrastructure registry.
A field-first inspection experience designed to remain fast and reliable on real structures, even with poor connectivity.
1 / 10
The mobile workflow supports bridge location, inspection locking, offline data capture and guided defect assessment.
Desktop web app
1 / 12
The web platform brings asset oversight, inspection management, defect evaluation, risk computation and reporting into one workspace.
Project overview
Making bridge safety manageable at scale
Public infrastructure operators must keep tens of thousands of bridges and viaducts safe. Italy’s 2022 Guidelines made census, inspection and classification a mandatory, standardized process, yet much of the work still relied on paper, spreadsheets and disconnected tools.
INBEE turns that obligation into one digital service. The platform guides teams through bridge inventory, on-site inspection and defect evaluation, automatically computes the CdA risk index and exports data ready for the AINOP national registry.
The challenge
Turning a dense standard into a dependable daily workflow
The regulation describes a rigorous multi-level assessment, but does not tell teams how to coordinate people, data and decisions across the field and the office.
Inspectors needed speed, offline resilience and guidance on site. Infrastructure managers needed portfolio-wide oversight, traceability and compliant reporting. Both groups had to work on the same structures without duplicate entry or conflicting versions.
How might we turn a complex, mandatory inspection standard into a fast, reliable digital experience for both field inspectors and the operators managing public infrastructure assets?
My role
Leading the experience from field research to launch
As Senior Product Designer, I led UX strategy, service design and the end-to-end product experience from co-design in 2022 through market launch in 2023 and subsequent iteration.
I studied the bridge guidelines with structural engineers, joined on-site inspections and translated the regulation into the information architecture, service blueprint, notification model and guided workflows for the web platform and field app.
I owned the overall design direction, prototyped and tested with inspectors and public infrastructure managers, worked closely with six developers and mentored a junior designer responsible for parts of the public website and research support.
Research combined contextual interviews, collaborative sessions with public operators and inspectors, regulatory analysis and direct participation in field inspections.
Five recurring behaviors and constraints shaped the product.
01
Field and office are two different worlds
Inspectors need speed and resilience on site; operators need oversight, consistency and traceability across an entire portfolio.
02
Compliance is cognitively heavy
CdA computation and defect sheets are slow and error-prone when teams have to interpret the guidelines manually.
03
Data must flow without re-entry
Every structure and inspection must remain exportable to AINOP without rebuilding the same record in another system.
04
Inspection is collaborative
Several professionals often contribute to the same structure, requiring clear ownership, locking and synchronization.
05
Connectivity cannot be assumed
Inspections often happen in areas with weak coverage, so the field workflow must remain fully usable offline.
1 / 4
Personas and empathy maps distilled the goals, pressures and working contexts of field inspectors and infrastructure coordinators.
Design principles
Crafting the compliance backbone
The research was translated into four principles that guided product and technical decisions.
01
Compliance by design
Build the official guidelines and CdA logic directly into the workflow instead of adding validation at the end.
02
Field-first
Keep the mobile experience fast, guided and resilient under real inspection-site conditions.
03
One system, two audiences
Use a shared structure model for inspectors in the field and managing authorities in the office.
04
Interoperable by default
Keep data structured and ready for AINOP export throughout the process.
Service design
Designing around the inspection lifecycle
Design sprints with developers, structural experts and inspectors mapped how a structure moves through Level 0 inventory, Level 1 visual inspection and defect evaluation and Level 2 risk assessment.
The resulting experience breaks large regulatory sheets into save-as-you-go steps, surfaces defects relevant to each element and material, makes intermediate CdA assessments visible and maintains continuity between mobile capture and web review. After beta feedback, defect sheets became context-aware checklists so inspectors could review every valid check for an element in one view.
1 / 3
The service map, inspection state machine and field-level regulatory mapping aligned the digital workflow with real operations.
MVP strategy
Prioritizing what to build first
Before detailed prototyping, I used co-design workshops and a MoSCoW framework to organize capabilities by user type, touchpoint and implementation priority.
The first release focused on the smallest coherent path that could deliver user value, satisfy the Italian guidelines and remain technically feasible: structure setup, guided inspection, defect assessment, automatic CdA computation and AINOP-ready export.
The feature-prioritization board balanced needs across inspectors, public operators and INBEE administrators.
System architecture
One data model across web, field and national reporting
The product was shaped as three connected experiences over one structured bridge record.
Web platform
Census, inspection management, defect evaluation, CdA reporting and portfolio oversight.
Mobile app
Field-first data capture, inspection locking, media collection and offline synchronization.
Interoperability layer
AINOP-ready export and mapping between official records and internal IOP codes.
Shared structure record
Level 0Bridge census
Level 1Visual inspection
DefectsSeverity evaluation
Level 2CdA risk index
Web and mobile workflows contribute to the same auditable structure record, from census to risk assessment and AINOP export.
The web platform, mobile app and interoperability layer share one structure record. Four core modules cover Level 0 census, Level 1 visual inspection, defect evaluation and Level 2 attention-class computation.
Role-based access, a data model mapped to the official guideline sheets and qualification by Italy’s National Cybersecurity Agency (ACN) made security and compliance part of the platform foundation.
Design system
Extending proven foundations for a specialist domain
Rather than creating a design system from scratch, we used Google Material UI and AMCharts as foundations, then extended them with patterns specific to bridge inventory, quick-edit tables, inspection sheets and risk visualization.
The shared system kept dense technical data consistent across web and mobile while giving each workflow the guidance it needed.
Reusable components for bridge status, bulk editing, defect sheets and CdA risk computation.
Product iteration
Learning from real inspections and early adopters
A free demo, hands-on onboarding and field trials exposed friction that internal reviews could not reproduce.
From overwhelming to guided
Problem
Inspectors filled defect sheets slowly and the omission risk was high.
Evidence
Inspectors added compatible defects one at a time through a filtered search. Although incompatible defects were already excluded, the process remained slow and made it difficult to see everything that needed to be checked for each structural element, increasing the risk of omissions.
Insight
Inspectors needed the full set of valid checks for one element visible at once, not a catalog they had to reconstruct defect by defect.
Intervention
We redesigned the sheet as a pre-filled, context-aware checklist showing all defects valid for the selected element type and material. Inspectors could review the complete set at a glance, supported by inline guidance, reference images and severity indicators (K1/K2).
Outcome
After iterating with inspectors, field testing indicated faster completion, fewer omissions and greater confidence in the inspection results.
Clarifying the path from demo to collaboration
Problem
New users dropped off before reaching value because registration, subscription states and inspector invitations were unclear.
Evidence
Early onboarding sessions repeatedly surfaced confusion before users could explore a real bridge workflow.
Intervention
We opened sample demo bridges before subscription, shortened registration, clarified free, demo and trial states and streamlined invitations and email calls to action.
Outcome
Activation became smoother and the route from product exploration to subscription was easier to understand.
Outcomes
Adoption across the bridge ecosystem
Three years after launch, INBEE had become a live operational platform used by professionals and public infrastructure organizations.
Live-product adoption figures reported after three years of operation.
500+
Professional inspectors registered
750+
Public infrastructure operators onboarded
13,000+
Bridges and viaducts tracked
ACN
Qualified by Italy’s National Cybersecurity Agency
Reflection
Making complexity actionable
INBEE’s value lies in turning a complex safety and regulatory obligation into a clear daily workflow, from field collection to assessment, office review and national reporting.
The project reinforced that regulated products become trustworthy when they mirror expert practice, make critical calculations transparent and connect every participant through one coherent system.
Interoperability was not a final technical detail. Making AINOP export part of the experience is what helped turn interest into sustained adoption.
Great product design can make even a dense, mandatory standard feel clear, reliable and actionable.
The team
The INBEE team and I at the product launch in September 2022 🐝