01
The challenge
The remarketing team ran its daily work on a third-party application that was 15 years old and hard to use. Replacing it meant designing something better without disrupting work that couldn't stop: the old system had to keep running the whole time.
The legacy app made collaboration nearly impossible. People couldn't find the information they needed to make timely decisions, and some assignments were lost for years.
02
Research: how the work really happens
I interviewed the staff who used the application and the subject-matter experts behind the process. Then I mapped their current-state workflows in FigJam to see where work actually broke down, not where a process diagram said it would.
03
What I learned
There were too many cooks in the kitchen
The replacement had started and stalled more than once over the past year. When I began gathering requirements, I found that every stakeholder had their own vision for the new app, but no one had asked the people who used the old one every day what they needed.
Daily work queues were essential to re-unifying the remarketing team
The old app's reports weren't shared between users, so no one had a clear view of daily work queues or assignments. Critical time slipped by, and in some cases inventory was lost.
A chance to rethink the data
A new app meant the business could start pulling from key data sources through APIs. My job was to make sure we captured and displayed the data the team actually needed, not just what the old system had locked us into.
04
Design
I turned the findings into user flows and interactive Figma prototypes, designing around the way the team already worked.
Before
After
Deciding how to remarket a vehicle takes a lot of data that keeps changing. I designed a view that keeps the key details visible on every tab of the record, so users never have to hunt for them. I also added an assignment checklist that shows which stage an assignment is in and what is holding it back from moving forward.
05
Testing and alignment
Before anything was built, I tested the prototypes with the team's manager and director, two team members, the developer and the tech lead, including unmoderated usability studies. I shared what we learned in stakeholder readouts and adjusted the direction until we had alignment.
The biggest shift during testing was moving from a manager's point of view to an everyday user's. I worked to change how remarketing leadership understood the new app: it wasn't about reporting, it was about doing the work, and doing it efficiently. Build what works first; reporting can follow.
06
Where it stands
The new application is being built now. The first phase sets up the basics and the data. Once the manual process is ironed out, the next step is to look for where AI and automation can move assignment tasks and decisions along.
Reflection
This project confirmed what I believe about design: the best solutions start where the work actually happens. It's easy to assume the business knows what it needs, but what happens when it gets that wrong? Replacing a 15-year-old system felt enormous at first. Breaking it into pieces, talking to the people who do the work every day, and designing for them first made it manageable.