Fly to the Problem

I recognized immediately that remote collaboration wouldn't be sufficient. I made the case to fly to headquarters for an intensive week-long workshop with the three lead architects behind the editing system. Working in person let me develop a complete understanding of the technical constraints and solution space far faster than async iteration would have allowed — and gave the architecture team real-time design feedback as we evaluated options together.

Back home, I recognized the second problem: the prototype required to validate and ship the solution was enormous and I had under three months to build it, validate it, and hand it off to engineering. I escalated to my manager, secured budget approval, and hired a UX researcher and a UX design intern within the first month. In parallel, I built a scalable Figma component library — puzzle pieces the team could use to assemble flows efficiently once onboarded. I designed every screen, pattern, and state; the team stitched it into a complete, reviewable prototype. Daily reviews with PM and engineering ran throughout.

The Design

The central insight was that the old tool's complexity wasn't inherent to the task — it was a product of how the interface required users to work. The solution was Configuration Profiles: create a template once, apply it across a fleet. This eliminated the rebuild-from-scratch pattern that made large-scale updates so costly.

Around that core:

• Clear sequencing — condensed and reordered steps to remove unnecessary back-and-forth
• Review before apply — an explicit confirmation showing exactly what will change across the fleet before anything is sent
• Immediate validation feedback — errors surfaced at input, not at submission