EVOLVE
PROJECT OVERVIEW
ROLE
Lead UX Designer
YEAR
2022
TOOLS
Figma / Balsamiq / Google Form Surveys / Zoom
METHODS
User Interviews / Competitive Analysis / Personas / Wireframing / Design Systems / Visual Design / Dev Handoff
Evolve is a cloud-based manufacturing platform designed to help teams visualize, track, and optimize production across complex factory systems. I led design across web and mobile, working from early discovery through shipped product.
My responsibilities included conducting research, defining user flows, wireframing, building interactive prototypes, and creating scalable design systems in Figma. I collaborated closely with product managers and engineers to deliver an end-to-end platform that was both powerful and intuitive for manufacturing operators and analysts.
UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM
Before Evolve, manufacturers were juggling fragmented tools — spreadsheets, PDFs, outdated dashboards — with no unified system for monitoring real-time operations. The result was inefficiency, lost time, and inconsistent visibility across departments.
Our goal was to create an all-in-one web-based platform to centralize everything from equipment control to operator schedules and sensor data. It needed to be flexible enough to serve multiple user types and robust enough to scale across factories.
Main Goals
The primary goal of the project was to create an all-in-one system that could replace fragmented manufacturing workflows. The platform needed to support both high-level oversight and low-level control — with interfaces that made complex data accessible to various users in real time.
We focused on three key objectives:
Centralize production data, layout planning, task tracking, and analytics
Support flexibility across roles (operators, engineers, managers)
Design a modular system that could scale across different factory environments
RESEARCH
I began by ramping up in an unfamiliar domain, leading discovery calls, documentation reviews, and feedback loops with engineers and operators to understand existing workflows, pain points, and terminology. These early conversations shaped our baseline understanding and gave us a foundation to measure improvements against. While this discovery work started at the beginning, research continued throughout the project in the form of usability sessions and sprint feedback loops.
I worked closely with internal stakeholders to understand user expectations, pain points, and existing workflows. This early input shaped our understanding of the information hierarchy and helped surface common patterns in task management, reporting, and equipment control.
DEFINE
From the research insights, I translated user pain points into measurable success criteria — task completion time, error rate, and operator confidence. These became the benchmarks we used to guide and later evaluate our design.
I then mapped responsibilities across operator, engineer, and manager roles to create early role-based user flows. This gave the team clarity on what each user needed to accomplish and highlighted opportunities where the product could streamline their work.
To support long-term scalability, I built a system-wide information architecture that outlined modules, data relationships, and role interactions. This framework became a reference point throughout design and development, ensuring the product stayed cohesive as new features were added.
Visual breakdown of the platform’s module structure across user roles, used to guide navigation design and system hierarchy.
IDEATION
We approached ideation as an iterative sprint process rather than a one-time design step. Across multiple sprints, I produced low-fidelity wireframes to explore interface ideas for layout planning, equipment monitoring, and role-based navigation. Each sprint focused on a specific workflow or user role, allowing us to validate functionality in manageable pieces before scaling to the full system.
To validate concepts, I partnered with stakeholders and operators in short feedback loops. We tested wireframes and interactive prototypes in realistic task scenarios, gathering insights on efficiency, clarity, and error points. These early tests surfaced issues — such as overly dense screens and unclear task hierarchies — which we refined before moving into higher-fidelity design.
I also focused on modularity, designing reusable patterns that could scale as new tools and views were added. This modular system gave the product team flexibility to evolve functionality over time without requiring full redesigns, while ensuring consistency across operator, engineer, and manager interfaces.
Early-stage wireframes for key workflows, helping to validate screen structure and task flows before visual styling.
VISUAL DESIGN
After validating core layouts and workflows, I moved into high-fidelity design — using Material Design as a foundation for building a scalable and consistent interface system. Leveraging its established components and design principles allowed me to focus on adapting the system to suit the needs of manufacturing users, including data-heavy views and task-specific interactions.
I built and maintained a custom design system in Figma, including components, typography, color styles, spacing, and documentation. The system ensured visual consistency across the platform and gave the engineering team a reliable source of truth for implementation. It also supported faster iteration and reduced friction during handoff.
A flexible button system built on Material Design foundations, customized to support varied states, sizes, and use cases across the platform.
High-fidelity interface designs showcasing core platform features, including layout planning, equipment tracking, and task automation.
SUCCESS METRICS & REFLECTIONS
This project was a strong exercise in remote collaboration, systems thinking, and scalable UI design. I had to ramp up quickly in an unfamiliar domain and translate complex internal knowledge into structured, usable interfaces.
To ensure the design solved real pain points, I defined success criteria early and validated outcomes using usability testing, analytics, and stakeholder feedback.
Task efficiency: We ran multiple rounds of task-based usability tests during the pilot rollout. Operators were asked to complete representative scheduling tasks while we observed and timed them using a screen-recording tool and stopwatch method. Across sessions, we saw consistent improvements — for example, tasks that previously averaged ~5 minutes in the legacy workflow were completed in under 2 minutes in the new platform (a 60% reduction).
Reduced complexity: We benchmarked the legacy scheduling workflow, which often required operators to navigate multiple spreadsheets and perform ~12 manual steps for a single task. In pilot rollout testing, the redesigned flow reduced this to 7 streamlined steps, a ~40% reduction. This was validated through task-based usability testing and direct observation during training sessions.
Error reduction: In the legacy workflow, about 1 in 4 tasks contained mistakes such as double-bookings or missed assignments. During pilot rollout testing of the new platform, errors dropped to fewer than 1 in 10 tasks, and because the system surfaced issues in real time, they were caught and corrected much faster.
Stakeholder satisfaction: Ran short post-demo surveys (Google Forms) with engineers and managers, which averaged 4.7/5 on usability and clarity.
Scalable system: Tracked adoption of Figma design system components inside the library. Development teams reported fewer design-related revisions during sprint handoffs.
These outcomes validated that the new system streamlined workflows, improved operator confidence, and provided a scalable foundation for ongoing development.
Though long-term metrics evolved after launch, these early indicators helped us prioritize features, streamline workflows, and design a system that could scale with minimal rework.
While the product continues to evolve post-handoff, the foundational work on information hierarchy, component structure, and visual consistency has scaled well across new features. It was a rewarding opportunity to design at a systems level while staying grounded in user needs.
THANKS FOR READING
If you’d like to learn more about this project or talk about working together, reach out here.