Uniform Builder
Redesigning a dense uniform design tool around how sales reps actually work.
- 90% faster To design a reversible uniform (10 min to 1 min) Measured in staging
- Up to 90% fewer Color changes to recolor a design (10–50 down to 5 or fewer) Measured in staging
- 3 tabs → 1 Patterns, piping and colors now share one tab
The problem
The uniform builder was part of a full refresh of the site’s look, and it also needed to work better. Sales and account reps told me it was confusing and complex to use, so I sat with them and watched how they used it to see where they got stuck.
They almost never started from scratch. The builder had to be designed for quick changes.
Before: three tabs for one design
Patterns, piping and colors lived on separate tabs, so reps jumped back and forth to finish a single design. Text and logos had their own complex steps, and every color had to be changed by hand on every part of the uniform.
After: one tab for everything
I merged patterns, piping and colors into a single tab, which cut two tabs. Now everything a rep needs is in one place.
One master color
Many reps reuse a design for a new team and change only the colors. That used to mean 10 to 50 individual changes for a single item. With master colors, changing one color updates it everywhere it is used. In staging, a full recolor took five changes or fewer.
Text and logos in one spot
Applications that were once controlled in three places now live together, and adding text or a logo takes fewer steps.
Reversibles in a few clicks
Reps used to rebuild the second side of a reversible uniform by hand, which took about ten minutes. Now the design carries over in a few clicks. In staging, it took about one minute.
What I learned
The old builder was designed around making new designs, and at first I expected reps to work that way too. When I watched them, they mostly edited designs they already had. That changed my goal: help reps get as much done as quickly as possible, so they could spend their time on the work that mattered more.
Where it led
The redesign was finished and in staging when I left. I also designed two future features: designing several products at once, and switching between similar products while keeping a design. Both were held back because they were complex to build on the back end.
