Redesigning a tool employees were avoiding, not just updating its skin.

The challenge

An internal enterprise tool built years earlier had accumulated features without ever revisiting its underlying design. Employees described it as something they "had to" use rather than wanted to, and the client's own support team spent a disproportionate share of their time walking users through basic navigation.

The approach

Rather than start from a blank canvas, we began by shadowing actual users completing their daily tasks — the redesign priorities came directly from where people got stuck, not from a general assumption about what "modern" should look like. We prioritized fixing the highest-friction workflows first rather than attempting a full redesign in one release.

What we built

A redesigned interface with a consistent component library built in Figma and implemented as a matching React/Storybook system, so design and engineering stayed in sync going forward rather than drifting apart again. Navigation was restructured around the tasks users actually performed most often, not the org chart of features that had accumulated over time.

The result

Support tickets related to basic navigation and "how do I..." questions dropped substantially in the months after launch, and internal engagement metrics the client tracked showed a clear improvement in daily active usage. The new component library also gave the client's own team a foundation to keep the product consistent as they kept building.