Casting Virtual Simulation Software
Guiding casting and foundry experts through complex simulation.
Manufacturing / Simulation Software
B2B
This case study is based on professional experience in a regulated enterprise environment. The content reflects my design approach and decision‑making. Visuals can't be shown. For details, reach out to me directly.
Role
Product Designer (UI/UX)
Team
Project Manager (requirements and prioritization)
Customer Experience Specialists (domain and user inputs)
Developers (feasibility & implementation alignment)
Me
Platform
Desktop
Duration
8 months
Casting and foundry experts work in a feature-heavy simulation platform. The existing tool was fragmented and overloaded: inconsistent UI patterns across modules, overloaded toolbar, dialog-based interactions that scattered tasks, and a steep learning curve, with design barely present in planning.
I redesigned the interaction model around a structured, step-based workflow and brought design into roadmap planning, transforming an overloaded, deferral-prone system into one built around how experts actually work.
Impact 1
Lower cognitive load
A step-based interaction model and a leaner, context-specific toolbar, cut from over 40 tools to 6, made a feature-heavy system easier to navigate and reason about.
Impact 3
Shipped, not deferred
Many usability improvements landed within the release cycle instead of being postponed to a later version.
Impact 4
Design as a planning partner
Roadmap-based scoping became standard practice, changing the quality of decisions made upstream.
Context
The problem: a feature-heavy system with no structural coherence
The tool was built from multiple modules with inconsistent UI patterns and little structural coherence.
Dialog-based interactions spread functionality across multiple entry points, making an already complex system hard to navigate, especially for less experienced users.
Main findings
Finding 3
Design absent from planning
Design had limited organizational presence, so UX work risked being deferred release after release under technical constraints.
The system treated complexity as unavoidable rather than structuring it.
My role
How did I solve it?
I led design across two core areas of the casting workflow — one for defining the casting setup, one for preparing the model geometry.
🕵️♀️ Discovery
Understand the product & needs. Studied the product and the needs of existing and upcoming features, working with PMs and Customer Experience experts who provided the user insights. From these inputs, I identified user personas with AI support.
👨🏼🦰 User identification
Identify the users. Collected insights about the different users and created some user personas with AI support.
🗺️ Planning
Roadmap the UX work. Introduced and created a roadmap for the UX design features, aligned with the product release cycle.
✏️ Design & Alignment
Design in small, aligned steps. Given the complexity, I worked in step-by-step design changes with frequent feedback sessions: keeping PMs, engineering, and QA team on the same page throughout.
🧩 Collaborate
Collaborate on the design system. Worked with the global design team, requesting new components for specific needs, the design system was new and still under construction.
📑 Feasibility Check
Align on feasibility. Partnered with software engineers and architects to determine feasibility: which components the design system could support, and which needed to be custom.
🚀 Validation
Validate the concept. Tested the overall concept through usability testing with 4 internal CX specialists.
Design direction
Structuring complexity without breaking delivery
The redesign came down to three structural decisions:
two about reducing what users had to deal with on screen,
one about shipping it all without compromising quality.
Before
After
Before
Unnecessary tools are shown by default.
After
Only essential tools are shown by default. Users can customize the toolbar based on their individual needs.
Research and validation
Validating the interaction model with internal experts
A structured usability test with 4 internal CX specialists, comparing the new contextual sidebar against the legacy modal-based approach. Session analysis and synthesis were supported by AI.
Method
Structured usability sessions
Outcome
The new sidebar was received positively and reduced the cognitive load of working in a feature-heavy system.
Research focus: new sidebar
Tested whether the new contextual side panel let users complete tasks more clearly than the old dialog/modal approach, which scattered functionality across multiple entry points.
Finding: participants navigated the step-based sidebar with less friction than the modal flow, confirming the structured model reduced cognitive load and fragmentation.
Organization impact
Making design a planning partner
When I joined, design had limited presence in planning. I used the redesign as a wedge to change that.
I came in to solve a UX problem and left having changed how the organization made decisions about usability prioritization.
The redesign changed not just how experts navigated the tool, but how the organization planned around usability.
By structuring complexity instead of removing it, the team delivered meaningful usability improvements within the release cycle, avoiding a full postponement.
Outcome 1
Structure over simplification
The step-based interaction model and a trimmed, context-relevant toolbar improved task clarity and reduced fragmentation, making complex workflows more accessible.
Reflections
What I learned
This work reinforced that simplifying enterprise software doesn't mean reducing complexity: it means structuring it.
It also showed that the most durable design impact was organizational: changing when design entered the conversation changed the quality of decisions being made upstream.
What worked well ✅
Structural diagnosis over surface fixes
Treating complexity as something to structure, not strip away, kept necessary depth intact while removing friction.
Roadmap-based scoping changed perception
Bringing design into scoping conversations shifted how design was perceived organizationally, a lasting change.
Design system coordination created reuse
Working directly with the design system team created reuse and visibility that outlasted the project.
What I'd do differently ❌
Test with customers
Validation ran with internal CX specialists as proxies, testing the concept with real customers would make the findings far more robust.
Push for design involvement earlier
Some constraints could have been shaped from the start had design been at the table sooner.
Define success metrics upfront
Setting measurable goals early (task time, error rates, learning curve) would have made the impact easier to defend.
Do you want to know more about it?
Other case studies
