Hands-On Design
Taking Enterprise SaaS to The Next Level
Taking Enterprise SaaS to The Next Level
The company gave us a year to rebuild their entire platform. Small team. Impossible deadline. Executives who didn't think we'd pull it off.
RizePoint managed food safety audits and certifications for clients like Starbucks, McDonald's, Wendy's, and IHOP. When McDonald's orders onions from a producer, someone has to verify that the food was properly sourced, stored, and transported. The existing platform tracked all of that, but it had been built piece-by-piece over a decade. It was slow, clunky, and barely functional.
The task: build a completely new platform from scratch. Make it faster, easier to use, and get it working within a year. Don't touch the old system. Just build something better while clients keep using the old one.
Problem
Decade-old food safety platform was barely functional. Build a complete replacement from scratch in one year.
Role
Led research with enterprise clients, designed the entire platform, validated every decision with real users.
Solution
Continuous discovery with audit teams at major food chains. Designed workflows based on their actual needs. Shipped in phases with beta testing.
Impact
Reduced audit management from hours per day to one hour per week. Delivered working MVP in less than 12 months.
MVP platform redesign
Fully working redesign delivered in under 12 months
Design system creation
Cutting design/development time by 30%
Client satisfaction improved
Positive feedback from McDonald’s and Starbucks audit teams
Mobile task time reduced by 40%
Through contextual inputs and smart defaults
PROBLEM
Building A New Platform That Everyone Had An Opinion On
The old platform had been built over nearly ten years. Every feature added in pieces with no overall plan. Searching for certifications took minutes. Creating new audits required jumping between five different screens. Compliance managers spent hours every day just managing paperwork.
The company's new president (former head of Product) thought she knew exactly what clients needed. She'd meet with the PM and me a few times a week to tell us what to build and how it should work. When I did designs, she'd push back and tell me how it should be designed instead.
Looking back, I think the executives gave our small team this project because they weren't sure we'd actually pull it off. It was a skunkworks project. If it worked, great. If not, the old platform was still running.
We had a PM, me as designer/researcher, two frontend devs, two backend devs, and a QA engineer. That was it.
Led the UX strategy, created the design system, and drove the redesign across multiple teams under tight deadlines.
APPROACH
Proving It With Client Feedback & Data
The PM and I set up exploratory conversations with audit managers at Starbucks, McDonald's, and other major clients. I ran the research interviews - asking about their business, their goals, their actual problems. We learned that overall our platform hadn't been helping solve their real issues.
I'd sketch rough designs based on what I heard, get them back in front of clients for feedback, then adjust. When I had something that seemed to work, I'd bring it to the full team. We'd discuss the reasoning, the tradeoffs, what we could actually build.
When the president came back around to tell us what we should be doing, I pushed back with client feedback and data. She backed down fast. We'd proven we knew what we were doing.
01.
Built a Modular, Scalable Design System
Built a Modular, Scalable Design System
Built a Modular, Scalable Design System
Created components and patterns that enabled rapid redesign while improving consistency.
02.
Drove Cross-Functional Alignment
Drove Cross-Functional Alignment
Drove Cross-Functional Alignment
Established clear roles and processes so UX, engineering, and product could move fast without breaking things.
03.
Embedded Research with Global Clients
Embedded Research with Global Clients
Embedded Research with Global Clients
Ran continuous research to validate designs with users worldwide, uncovering issues early.
04.
Shipped in Phases with Continuous Validation
Shipped in Phases with Continuous Validation
Shipped in Phases with Continuous Validation
Rolled out the redesign incrementally, reducing risk and keeping delivery velocity high.
Getting The First Version Wrong
I designed what I thought was a clean, streamlined audit workflow. Fewer screens. Less clutter. Modern interface patterns. I was proud of it, then I showed it to the team that had been there much longer than I had. They ripped it apart in every way possible.
They needed to see vendor certifications, location history, past audit results, and current compliance status all at once. My "clean" design had actually hide the most important pieces and made them hunt across multiple screens for information that used to be in one place. What I thought was simplification was actually making their job harder.
So I went back. I talked to more clients and internal experts. I watched them work. I asked them to show me their actual process. They needed context. They needed history. They needed everything visible because they were making compliance decisions that could shut down a supplier if they got it wrong.
Designing Every Screen From Scratch
I redesigned the screens to show more information, not less. I added contextual panels that displayed vendor and task history when you selected a supplier. I created smart defaults that pre-filled location data if you were auditing the same facility. I designed search that filtered by certification type, expiration date, and compliance status simultaneously.
The interface got busier, but tasks got 40% faster.
I built the entire platform in Figma. Every screen. Every workflow. Every state. Not just the happy path, but error states, loading states, empty states. If an audit failed, what did the user see? If a certification expired during an audit, how did the system handle it?
Since we were building from scratch, I could design the ideal workflows without worrying about legacy code. But I still had to work within reality. The developers and I would argue about what was technically feasible. They'd tell me something wasn't possible. I'd ask why. They'd explain the database constraints or API limitations. I'd adjust the design to work within those constraints.
Then we'd go get beers and burgers and argue about it some more. We even started meeting at the empty office a few times a week as a team. The rest of the company happily worked remote, but our group got together and built trust.
Shipping In Phases With Beta Users
We shipped features as soon as they were ready. Discovery, scope planning, rough designs, client feedback, revise, develop, test, repeat. As soon as we had a working piece, we put it in front of real clients. Real audit managers and compliance teams.
When we got to the MVP stage, I showed the new platform to the person who managed audits and vendor certifications for Starbucks. She was responsible for tracking compliance for hundreds of suppliers. Under the old system, it took her hours every day just to manage paperwork.
She started crying.
She said she could finally do her real job instead of drowning in administrative work. The automated workflows and search we'd built would reduce her workload from hours per day to one hour per week.
That moment made every argument, every late night in Figma, every redesign worth it.
OUTCOMES
Impact Made It All Worth It
The MVP shipped in under 12 months. Beta clients were testing it and loving it before the full company was ready to launch it.
Key workflows that took audit managers hours became tasks they completed in minutes. The Starbucks vendor manager went from spending hours per day on compliance paperwork to spending one hour per week. Mobile audits became 40% faster because field teams could access everything they needed in context.
We built a design system along the way that cut development time by 30% because engineers could reuse components instead of building everything custom for every feature.
More importantly, clients trusted it. They cried when they saw it. Beta users were doing real work on it while the old platform kept running.
Delivered a faster, more consistent user experience while meeting every deadline and maintaining full operational continuity.
WHY IT MATTERS
Building From Zero With Real User Input
Most companies that try to rebuild a platform from scratch either take five years or ship something nobody wants. We did it in under a year and had clients crying tears of joy.
The reason it worked was because of the continuous client feedback from day one. We didn't build in a vacuum. We talked to the people who would actually use it. We showed them rough designs and adjusted when they told us it didn't work. We put working features in front of beta users as soon as they were ready.
The work wasn't glamorous. It was interviewing audit managers. It was designing every screen myself in Figma. It was watching users struggle with interfaces I thought were clean and then redesigning them. It was arguing with developers about database constraints until we found common ground.
But the work was real. And it worked.
The team made it possible. The engineers who argued with me until we found solutions. The PM who kept us focused. The QA engineer who caught the things we missed. And the clients who told us the truth about what they needed instead of what they thought we wanted to hear.
More Projects
Hands-On Design
Taking Enterprise SaaS to The Next Level
Taking Enterprise SaaS to The Next Level
The company gave us a year to rebuild their entire platform. Small team. Impossible deadline. Executives who didn't think we'd pull it off.
RizePoint managed food safety audits and certifications for clients like Starbucks, McDonald's, Wendy's, and IHOP. When McDonald's orders onions from a producer, someone has to verify that the food was properly sourced, stored, and transported. The existing platform tracked all of that, but it had been built piece-by-piece over a decade. It was slow, clunky, and barely functional.
The task: build a completely new platform from scratch. Make it faster, easier to use, and get it working within a year. Don't touch the old system. Just build something better while clients keep using the old one.
Problem
Decade-old food safety platform was barely functional. Build a complete replacement from scratch in one year.
Role
Led research with enterprise clients, designed the entire platform, validated every decision with real users.
Solution
Continuous discovery with audit teams at major food chains. Designed workflows based on their actual needs. Shipped in phases with beta testing.
Impact
Reduced audit management from hours per day to one hour per week. Delivered working MVP in less than 12 months.
MVP platform redesign
Fully working redesign delivered in under 12 months
Design system creation
Cutting design/development time by 30%
Client satisfaction improved
Positive feedback from McDonald’s and Starbucks audit teams
Mobile task time reduced by 40%
Through contextual inputs and smart defaults
PROBLEM
Building A New Platform That Everyone Had An Opinion On
The old platform had been built over nearly ten years. Every feature added in pieces with no overall plan. Searching for certifications took minutes. Creating new audits required jumping between five different screens. Compliance managers spent hours every day just managing paperwork.
The company's new president (former head of Product) thought she knew exactly what clients needed. She'd meet with the PM and me a few times a week to tell us what to build and how it should work. When I did designs, she'd push back and tell me how it should be designed instead.
Looking back, I think the executives gave our small team this project because they weren't sure we'd actually pull it off. It was a skunkworks project. If it worked, great. If not, the old platform was still running.
We had a PM, me as designer/researcher, two frontend devs, two backend devs, and a QA engineer. That was it.
Led the UX strategy, created the design system, and drove the redesign across multiple teams under tight deadlines.
APPROACH
Proving It With Client Feedback & Data
The PM and I set up exploratory conversations with audit managers at Starbucks, McDonald's, and other major clients. I ran the research interviews - asking about their business, their goals, their actual problems. We learned that overall our platform hadn't been helping solve their real issues.
I'd sketch rough designs based on what I heard, get them back in front of clients for feedback, then adjust. When I had something that seemed to work, I'd bring it to the full team. We'd discuss the reasoning, the tradeoffs, what we could actually build.
When the president came back around to tell us what we should be doing, I pushed back with client feedback and data. She backed down fast. We'd proven we knew what we were doing.
01.
Built a Modular, Scalable Design System
Built a Modular, Scalable Design System
Built a Modular, Scalable Design System
Created components and patterns that enabled rapid redesign while improving consistency.
02.
Drove Cross-Functional Alignment
Drove Cross-Functional Alignment
Drove Cross-Functional Alignment
Established clear roles and processes so UX, engineering, and product could move fast without breaking things.
03.
Embedded Research with Global Clients
Embedded Research with Global Clients
Embedded Research with Global Clients
Ran continuous research to validate designs with users worldwide, uncovering issues early.
04.
Shipped in Phases with Continuous Validation
Shipped in Phases with Continuous Validation
Shipped in Phases with Continuous Validation
Rolled out the redesign incrementally, reducing risk and keeping delivery velocity high.
Getting The First Version Wrong
I designed what I thought was a clean, streamlined audit workflow. Fewer screens. Less clutter. Modern interface patterns. I was proud of it, then I showed it to the team that had been there much longer than I had. They ripped it apart in every way possible.
They needed to see vendor certifications, location history, past audit results, and current compliance status all at once. My "clean" design had actually hide the most important pieces and made them hunt across multiple screens for information that used to be in one place. What I thought was simplification was actually making their job harder.
So I went back. I talked to more clients and internal experts. I watched them work. I asked them to show me their actual process. They needed context. They needed history. They needed everything visible because they were making compliance decisions that could shut down a supplier if they got it wrong.
Designing Every Screen From Scratch
I redesigned the screens to show more information, not less. I added contextual panels that displayed vendor and task history when you selected a supplier. I created smart defaults that pre-filled location data if you were auditing the same facility. I designed search that filtered by certification type, expiration date, and compliance status simultaneously.
The interface got busier, but tasks got 40% faster.
I built the entire platform in Figma. Every screen. Every workflow. Every state. Not just the happy path, but error states, loading states, empty states. If an audit failed, what did the user see? If a certification expired during an audit, how did the system handle it?
Since we were building from scratch, I could design the ideal workflows without worrying about legacy code. But I still had to work within reality. The developers and I would argue about what was technically feasible. They'd tell me something wasn't possible. I'd ask why. They'd explain the database constraints or API limitations. I'd adjust the design to work within those constraints.
Then we'd go get beers and burgers and argue about it some more. We even started meeting at the empty office a few times a week as a team. The rest of the company happily worked remote, but our group got together and built trust.
Shipping In Phases With Beta Users
We shipped features as soon as they were ready. Discovery, scope planning, rough designs, client feedback, revise, develop, test, repeat. As soon as we had a working piece, we put it in front of real clients. Real audit managers and compliance teams.
When we got to the MVP stage, I showed the new platform to the person who managed audits and vendor certifications for Starbucks. She was responsible for tracking compliance for hundreds of suppliers. Under the old system, it took her hours every day just to manage paperwork.
She started crying.
She said she could finally do her real job instead of drowning in administrative work. The automated workflows and search we'd built would reduce her workload from hours per day to one hour per week.
That moment made every argument, every late night in Figma, every redesign worth it.
OUTCOMES
Impact Made It All Worth It
The MVP shipped in under 12 months. Beta clients were testing it and loving it before the full company was ready to launch it.
Key workflows that took audit managers hours became tasks they completed in minutes. The Starbucks vendor manager went from spending hours per day on compliance paperwork to spending one hour per week. Mobile audits became 40% faster because field teams could access everything they needed in context.
We built a design system along the way that cut development time by 30% because engineers could reuse components instead of building everything custom for every feature.
More importantly, clients trusted it. They cried when they saw it. Beta users were doing real work on it while the old platform kept running.
Delivered a faster, more consistent user experience while meeting every deadline and maintaining full operational continuity.
WHY IT MATTERS
Building From Zero With Real User Input
Most companies that try to rebuild a platform from scratch either take five years or ship something nobody wants. We did it in under a year and had clients crying tears of joy.
The reason it worked was because of the continuous client feedback from day one. We didn't build in a vacuum. We talked to the people who would actually use it. We showed them rough designs and adjusted when they told us it didn't work. We put working features in front of beta users as soon as they were ready.
The work wasn't glamorous. It was interviewing audit managers. It was designing every screen myself in Figma. It was watching users struggle with interfaces I thought were clean and then redesigning them. It was arguing with developers about database constraints until we found common ground.
But the work was real. And it worked.
The team made it possible. The engineers who argued with me until we found solutions. The PM who kept us focused. The QA engineer who caught the things we missed. And the clients who told us the truth about what they needed instead of what they thought we wanted to hear.
More Projects
Hands-On Design
Taking Enterprise SaaS to The Next Level
Taking Enterprise SaaS to The Next Level
The company gave us a year to rebuild their entire platform. Small team. Impossible deadline. Executives who didn't think we'd pull it off.
RizePoint managed food safety audits and certifications for clients like Starbucks, McDonald's, Wendy's, and IHOP. When McDonald's orders onions from a producer, someone has to verify that the food was properly sourced, stored, and transported. The existing platform tracked all of that, but it had been built piece-by-piece over a decade. It was slow, clunky, and barely functional.
The task: build a completely new platform from scratch. Make it faster, easier to use, and get it working within a year. Don't touch the old system. Just build something better while clients keep using the old one.
Problem
Decade-old food safety platform was barely functional. Build a complete replacement from scratch in one year.
Role
Led research with enterprise clients, designed the entire platform, validated every decision with real users.
Solution
Continuous discovery with audit teams at major food chains. Designed workflows based on their actual needs. Shipped in phases with beta testing.
Impact
Reduced audit management from hours per day to one hour per week. Delivered working MVP in less than 12 months.
MVP platform redesign
Fully working redesign delivered in under 12 months
Design system creation
Cutting design/development time by 30%
Client satisfaction improved
Positive feedback from McDonald’s and Starbucks audit teams
Mobile task time reduced by 40%
Through contextual inputs and smart defaults
PROBLEM
Building A New Platform That Everyone Had An Opinion On
The old platform had been built over nearly ten years. Every feature added in pieces with no overall plan. Searching for certifications took minutes. Creating new audits required jumping between five different screens. Compliance managers spent hours every day just managing paperwork.
The company's new president (former head of Product) thought she knew exactly what clients needed. She'd meet with the PM and me a few times a week to tell us what to build and how it should work. When I did designs, she'd push back and tell me how it should be designed instead.
Looking back, I think the executives gave our small team this project because they weren't sure we'd actually pull it off. It was a skunkworks project. If it worked, great. If not, the old platform was still running.
We had a PM, me as designer/researcher, two frontend devs, two backend devs, and a QA engineer. That was it.
Led the UX strategy, created the design system, and drove the redesign across multiple teams under tight deadlines.
APPROACH
Proving It With Client Feedback & Data
The PM and I set up exploratory conversations with audit managers at Starbucks, McDonald's, and other major clients. I ran the research interviews - asking about their business, their goals, their actual problems. We learned that overall our platform hadn't been helping solve their real issues.
I'd sketch rough designs based on what I heard, get them back in front of clients for feedback, then adjust. When I had something that seemed to work, I'd bring it to the full team. We'd discuss the reasoning, the tradeoffs, what we could actually build.
When the president came back around to tell us what we should be doing, I pushed back with client feedback and data. She backed down fast. We'd proven we knew what we were doing.
01.
Built a Modular, Scalable Design System
Built a Modular, Scalable Design System
Built a Modular, Scalable Design System
Created components and patterns that enabled rapid redesign while improving consistency.
02.
Drove Cross-Functional Alignment
Drove Cross-Functional Alignment
Drove Cross-Functional Alignment
Established clear roles and processes so UX, engineering, and product could move fast without breaking things.
03.
Embedded Research with Global Clients
Embedded Research with Global Clients
Embedded Research with Global Clients
Ran continuous research to validate designs with users worldwide, uncovering issues early.
04.
Shipped in Phases with Continuous Validation
Shipped in Phases with Continuous Validation
Shipped in Phases with Continuous Validation
Rolled out the redesign incrementally, reducing risk and keeping delivery velocity high.
Getting The First Version Wrong
I designed what I thought was a clean, streamlined audit workflow. Fewer screens. Less clutter. Modern interface patterns. I was proud of it, then I showed it to the team that had been there much longer than I had. They ripped it apart in every way possible.
They needed to see vendor certifications, location history, past audit results, and current compliance status all at once. My "clean" design had actually hide the most important pieces and made them hunt across multiple screens for information that used to be in one place. What I thought was simplification was actually making their job harder.
So I went back. I talked to more clients and internal experts. I watched them work. I asked them to show me their actual process. They needed context. They needed history. They needed everything visible because they were making compliance decisions that could shut down a supplier if they got it wrong.
Designing Every Screen From Scratch
I redesigned the screens to show more information, not less. I added contextual panels that displayed vendor and task history when you selected a supplier. I created smart defaults that pre-filled location data if you were auditing the same facility. I designed search that filtered by certification type, expiration date, and compliance status simultaneously.
The interface got busier, but tasks got 40% faster.
I built the entire platform in Figma. Every screen. Every workflow. Every state. Not just the happy path, but error states, loading states, empty states. If an audit failed, what did the user see? If a certification expired during an audit, how did the system handle it?
Since we were building from scratch, I could design the ideal workflows without worrying about legacy code. But I still had to work within reality. The developers and I would argue about what was technically feasible. They'd tell me something wasn't possible. I'd ask why. They'd explain the database constraints or API limitations. I'd adjust the design to work within those constraints.
Then we'd go get beers and burgers and argue about it some more. We even started meeting at the empty office a few times a week as a team. The rest of the company happily worked remote, but our group got together and built trust.
Shipping In Phases With Beta Users
We shipped features as soon as they were ready. Discovery, scope planning, rough designs, client feedback, revise, develop, test, repeat. As soon as we had a working piece, we put it in front of real clients. Real audit managers and compliance teams.
When we got to the MVP stage, I showed the new platform to the person who managed audits and vendor certifications for Starbucks. She was responsible for tracking compliance for hundreds of suppliers. Under the old system, it took her hours every day just to manage paperwork.
She started crying.
She said she could finally do her real job instead of drowning in administrative work. The automated workflows and search we'd built would reduce her workload from hours per day to one hour per week.
That moment made every argument, every late night in Figma, every redesign worth it.
OUTCOMES
Impact Made It All Worth It
The MVP shipped in under 12 months. Beta clients were testing it and loving it before the full company was ready to launch it.
Key workflows that took audit managers hours became tasks they completed in minutes. The Starbucks vendor manager went from spending hours per day on compliance paperwork to spending one hour per week. Mobile audits became 40% faster because field teams could access everything they needed in context.
We built a design system along the way that cut development time by 30% because engineers could reuse components instead of building everything custom for every feature.
More importantly, clients trusted it. They cried when they saw it. Beta users were doing real work on it while the old platform kept running.
Delivered a faster, more consistent user experience while meeting every deadline and maintaining full operational continuity.
WHY IT MATTERS
Building From Zero With Real User Input
Most companies that try to rebuild a platform from scratch either take five years or ship something nobody wants. We did it in under a year and had clients crying tears of joy.
The reason it worked was because of the continuous client feedback from day one. We didn't build in a vacuum. We talked to the people who would actually use it. We showed them rough designs and adjusted when they told us it didn't work. We put working features in front of beta users as soon as they were ready.
The work wasn't glamorous. It was interviewing audit managers. It was designing every screen myself in Figma. It was watching users struggle with interfaces I thought were clean and then redesigning them. It was arguing with developers about database constraints until we found common ground.
But the work was real. And it worked.
The team made it possible. The engineers who argued with me until we found solutions. The PM who kept us focused. The QA engineer who caught the things we missed. And the clients who told us the truth about what they needed instead of what they thought we wanted to hear.