Manufacturing Simulator
Guiding domain experts through complex simulation.
Engineering Software
B2B
Leadership
UX/UI
This case study is based on professional experience under NDA, so visuals are blurred on purpose. The content reflects my design approach and decision‑making. For details, reach out to me directly.
Role
Lead Product Designer (full-time, sole designer)
Team
Project Manager
Customer Experience specialists
Developers and architects
Me
Platform
Desktop
Duration
10 months
Domain 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, without an established design plan.
I redesigned the interaction model around a structured, step-based workflow and brought design into roadmap planning, transforming an overloaded 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 11, made a feature-heavy system easier to navigate.
Impact 3
Shipped, not deferred
Most of the year's planned UX changes shipped within the release cycle, including the new design-system styling.
Impact 4
Design as a planning partner
I set up a recurring scoping meeting with PM and engineering, and design gained a seat in the major planning meetings.
Context
The problem: a feature-heavy system with inconsistent UI patterns
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. As the Customer Experience team reported, customers found the tool hard to learn, which meant heavy onboarding support and a high volume of support tickets.
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 I solved it
I led design across two core areas of the simulation workflow — one for defining the simulation setup, one for preparing the model.
Discovery
Understand the product and its users. I studied existing and upcoming features with PMs and Customer Experience specialists, who provided the user insights. From these inputs, I identified user personas with AI support.
Planning
Roadmap the UX work. I introduced a UX roadmap aligned with the product release cycle.
Design & Alignment
Design in small, aligned steps. Given the complexity, I made changes step by step, with frequent feedback sessions to keep PMs, engineering and QA on the same page.
Feasibility
Work within a growing system. The design system was new and still being built, so I worked with the global design team to request new components, and with software engineers to decide what the system could support and what needed to be custom.
Validation
Validate the concept. I tested the overall concept in usability sessions 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
Illustrative recreation, anonymized for NDA. Not the actual product UI.
After
Illustrative recreation, anonymized for NDA. Not the actual product UI.
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 to change that: by the time I moved to another product, design was part of how the team scoped and prioritised usability work.
Planning
Set up a recurring roadmap-scoping meeting, and earned a place for design in the major cross-team planning meetings.
Coordination
Coordinated directly with the design system team to propose enhancements and share reusable approaches, increasing consistency.
The leaner toolbar and most planned UX changes shipped within the year. The guided side panel was validated with CX specialists but not released during my time on the project.
Reflections
What I learned
Experts don't want less power; they want less friction. Showing only what each step needs kept the depth without the overload. This work 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
Shipping inside constraints
Interim solutions let the product move forward while the design system caught up, without lowering the bar.
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 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.
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