Workflow

Industrial UX Consultancy

Your software
has a workflow
problem.

Industrial software teams ship features users can't find, workflows nobody completes, and interfaces that need weeks of training to operate. We fix the experience — systematically — so your product earns its own renewals.

Get a Free UX Audit
$100
Return per $1
invested in UX
Forrester Research
80%
Features never
meaningfully adopted
Pendo 2024 Benchmarks
10×
Cost to fix UX
post-release vs. design
IBM / Human Factors Intl.
Product UX Audit

Start with a free audit — pay only when it's validated.

We review your product's core workflows and surface the top usability gaps. No fee until your development or business team confirms the findings are worth acting on.

Heuristic evaluation of core task flows (up to 3 flows)
Information architecture and navigation review
UX debt inventory with severity classification
Prioritized quick wins — actionable in the current sprint
Written findings report — yours to keep, regardless
Free to start
Pay $600–$1,800 only after your dev or business team validates the findings. If the audit doesn't surface actionable issues, you owe nothing.

No contract. Findings delivered in 5–7 business days.

CMMS PlatformsAsset ManagementManufacturing SaaSField ServiceERP SystemsIndustrial IoTLogistics PlatformsOEM PortalsCMMS PlatformsAsset ManagementManufacturing SaaSField ServiceERP SystemsIndustrial IoTLogistics PlatformsOEM Portals

The UX Problem in Industrial Software

More features won't fix a product users can't navigate.

Industrial SaaS is built by engineers solving domain problems — not interaction problems. The result is products with extraordinary capability and terrible learnability. Every department gets a module. Every edge case gets a modal. Every request gets shipped. And with every release, the cognitive load on your users compounds.

Pendo's 2024 benchmarks found that 80% of built features never achieve meaningful adoption. That's not a development problem. It's a discoverability and learnability problem. Features your team spent months building are invisible to the users who need them most.

"UX debt in industrial software isn't a cosmetic issue. It's a compounding liability that shows up in your renewal rates."

The pattern repeats across CMMS, ERP, Field Service, and Asset Management platforms. Usability issues accumulate quietly — surfacing first in support ticket volume, then in prolonged onboarding timelines, then in competitive displacement at renewal. The fix isn't a full redesign. It's a structured, evidence-based approach to the workflows that matter most.

Usability Issues We Address

Eight patterns found in almost every industrial SaaS audit.

These aren't edge cases. They're the recurring failure modes we document across CMMS, ERP, Field Service, and Asset Management products — each measurable, each fixable.

#
Issue
Consequence
Severity
01
Excessive task-completion steps
Users abandon mid-flow. Productivity drops. Power users build workarounds that become institutional knowledge no one documents.
Critical
02
Poor learnability and recallability
Infrequent tasks are forgotten between sessions. Users can't build a stable mental model — especially in systems used weekly, not daily.
Critical
03
High time-to-competency
Onboarding requires formal training to reach basic proficiency. Every hour of avoidable instruction is direct cost — typically $50–$150/user in facilitated time.
High
04
Low feature discoverability
Users rely on the same 20% of features because the rest are buried in navigation structures that don't reflect how they think about their work.
High
05
Accumulated UX debt
Each team built their module independently. The result is a product with inconsistent interaction patterns, contradictory conventions, and no coherent design language.
High
06
Tier-1 support ticket inflation
Support teams answer questions the interface should answer itself. If users are calling about how to do something, it's a navigation or feedback problem — not a training gap.
High
07
Inconsistent interaction patterns
Buttons with different labels for the same action. Modals that behave differently across modules. Users can't build a reliable mental model of system behavior.
Medium
08
Extended design-to-development cycles
Without a defined design system or validated interaction patterns, developers make UX decisions they're not equipped to make — increasing rework and slowing delivery velocity.
Medium

Verticals We Specialize In

Specialized in complex operational software. Nothing else.

Industrial UX is a distinct discipline. We don't need domain orientation or a three-week onboarding sprint to understand your users. We've worked in these verticals long enough to know the difference between a PM schedule and a purchase requisition.

01
🔧
CMMS Platforms
Work order management, preventive maintenance scheduling, asset hierarchies, technician dispatch. We understand these workflows without needing a domain orientation.
02
📊
Asset Management Software
Lifecycle tracking, condition monitoring, compliance documentation, and inspection workflows. High-stakes decisions need interfaces that surface the right information at the right time.
03
🏭
Manufacturing SaaS
Shop floor operators, production supervisors, and QA engineers have different mental models and constraints. We design for the full role spectrum — not just the power user.
04
📱
Field Service Software
Mobile-first, often offline, always time-constrained. Field technician UX is a distinct discipline — low-light readability, gloved-hand interaction, minimal cognitive load under pressure.
05
🗂️
ERP Systems
Legacy data architectures don't require legacy interfaces. We modernize interaction patterns incrementally — without disrupting established workflows or requiring a full re-implementation.
06
🚚
Logistics Platforms
High-velocity, time-critical operations where one extra click has a measurable throughput cost. Dispatch, routing, and exception handling — designed for speed and recoverability.
07
📡
Industrial IoT Platforms
Dashboards that support decision-making, not just data display. Alert hierarchies that communicate urgency. Visualization that maps to how operators think about plant state.
08
🔗
OEM Customer Portals
Your portal is a product with its own adoption challenges. Spare parts catalogs, warranty management, and service request flows should be self-serve — and often aren't.

The Business Case

Poor usability isn't a design concern. It's a P&L concern.

These figures come from published research — not projections. They reflect what organizations consistently measure after investing in structured UX improvement programs.

$100
Return per $1 invested in UX
Forrester's landmark study found that every dollar invested in experience design returns approximately $100 in measurable business value — spanning conversion, retention, and support cost reduction. The ROI holds across B2B software contexts.
Forrester Research
80%
Of built features never achieve meaningful adoption
Pendo's 2024 Product Benchmarks, drawn from real product usage data, found that the average enterprise product sees only 6% feature adoption. Roughly 80% of shipped features generate negligible usage — regardless of how much engineering effort went into them.
Pendo 2024 Benchmarks
10×
Cost multiplier for fixing UX issues post-release
Human Factors International and IBM research consistently show that identifying and correcting usability issues during the design phase costs a fraction of fixing the same issues after release. The multiplier ranges from 6× at implementation to over 10× in production.
IBM / Human Factors International

Measurable Outcomes

We scope every engagement around a business result, not a deliverable.

Design artifacts are the method. Reduced support costs, higher renewal rates, and faster time-to-value for your customers are the product. Here's what that looks like across five measurable dimensions.

Reduce Time-to-Competency
Users reach full task proficiency faster when the interface is self-evident. Onboarding programs shrink. Implementation timelines compress.
📉
Reduce Tier-1 Support Volume
Usability audits of enterprise portals routinely show 25–30% reductions in how-to tickets after targeted workflow improvements.
📈
Improve Feature Adoption
With better information architecture and progressive disclosure, users discover and regularly use more of the product. Higher adoption correlates directly with renewal rates.
🚀
Accelerate Delivery Velocity
Validated design systems and documented interaction patterns reduce design-to-development iteration cycles. Developers stop making UX decisions they're not equipped to make.
🔧
Retire UX Debt Systematically
A component library and pattern documentation create the foundation for consistent future development. New features ship with less rework and more coherence across the product.

Simpler UX vs. Alternatives

Why not a generalist agency — or a full-time hire?

Most UX agencies don't know the difference between a PM schedule and a purchase requisition. A full-time senior designer costs $120K–$180K annually and takes 90 days to ramp. Here's an honest comparison.

Dimension
Simpler UX
Agency / Full-Time Designer
Industrial domain knowledge
Deep — no ramp-up needed
Rarely — requires domain orientation
Time to first actionable deliverable
5–10 business days
6–12 weeks
Audit, redesign, and dev handoff
All in one engagement
Typically separate scopes or vendors
Entry cost / commitment required
Free audit — pay on validation
Retainer deposit or salary commitment
Ongoing monthly cost
$1,200–$3,600/mo (retainer)
$10K–$15K/mo (FTE fully loaded)
Outcome-based engagement scoping
Always — defined before we start
Rare — most engagements are hours-based

Engagement Models

Three ways to engage. Every scope is fixed before we start.

No open-ended proposals. No scope creep. Every engagement is scoped, priced, and time-bounded up front — so your stakeholders can approve it and your team knows what to expect.

Engagement 01 · One-Time
Product UX Audit

A systematic, heuristic-based review of your product's core user flows, information architecture, and interaction consistency. You leave with a prioritized improvement roadmap and a clear view of where the experience is costing you.

$600–$1,800
Fixed Price · 5–10 Business Days
Scope includes
  • Heuristic evaluation of core task flows (up to 5)
  • Information architecture and navigation review
  • User journey analysis across key personas
  • UX debt inventory with severity classification
  • Interaction consistency and pattern audit
  • Competitive usability benchmarking
Deliverables
  • Structured audit report (30–50 pages)
  • Severity-weighted priority matrix
  • Quick wins — implementable in current sprint
  • 90-day UX improvement roadmap
Engagement 02 · Project-Based
UX Debt Remediation

Act on the audit findings. We redesign the highest-friction workflows, standardize components across the product, and establish the design system foundation your team needs to maintain consistency going forward.

$1,800–$6,000
Fixed Scope · 4–10 Weeks
Scope includes
  • Workflow redesign for priority task flows
  • UI component standardization
  • Design system foundation (token set, component library)
  • Information architecture restructuring
  • Usability testing on redesigned flows
  • Developer-ready handoff with interaction specifications
Best suited for
  • Products post-audit with a validated priority list
  • Teams preparing for a major release or replatform
  • Products losing competitive evaluations on UX criteria
Engagement 03 · Retainer
Fractional Product Designer

An embedded senior product designer on your team — without the $150K+ salary, 90-day ramp, or headcount approval cycle. Weekly design reviews, feature discovery, and production-ready UI every sprint.

$1,200–$3,600/mo
Monthly Retainer · 30-Day Cancellation
Included each month
  • Weekly product design review sessions
  • Feature scoping and UX requirement definition
  • User flows and task flow documentation
  • Wireframes and high-fidelity UI screens
  • Interactive prototype reviews with stakeholders
  • Developer handoff with full interaction specs
  • Async Slack support (24-hour response SLA)
  • Monthly product UX health summary

Engagement Methodology

A five-phase methodology built for evidence-based design decisions.

Every engagement follows a structured, repeatable process. Findings are grounded in observed user behavior, product analytics, and stakeholder input — not aesthetic preference or gut instinct.

01
Discovery
02
Assessment
03
Prioritization
04
Design
05
Validation
Phase 01Discovery

We learn the product, the user roles, and the business constraints before forming any design opinions. No assumptions — everything is grounded in what we observe and hear.

Activities
  • Product walkthrough and demo session
  • User persona and role review
  • Business objectives alignment
  • Stakeholder interviews
  • Support ticket and analytics review
What we're establishing
  • Who uses this product and in what context
  • What workflows are mission-critical
  • What the business needs to improve
  • Where existing pain signals are documented
Output
Discovery brief summarizing product context, user roles, critical workflows, and agreed success criteria for the engagement.
Phase 02Assessment

Systematic identification of usability gaps using established heuristics, task-flow analysis, and cognitive walkthrough. Every issue is documented, not just noted.

Methods used
  • Heuristic evaluation (Nielsen's 10 principles)
  • Task flow completion analysis
  • Cognitive walkthrough
  • UX debt inventory
  • Competitive usability benchmarking
What we're documenting
  • Friction points in critical task flows
  • Information architecture gaps
  • Inconsistent interaction patterns
  • Missing affordances and feedback states
Output
Full UX debt inventory with severity classification (Critical / High / Medium) and annotated screenshots for each identified issue.
Phase 03Prioritization

Not every issue gets solved. We rank findings by business impact, user frustration severity, and implementation effort — then align with your team before any design work begins.

How we rank
  • Severity × user impact matrix
  • Implementation effort estimation
  • Business value mapping
  • Stakeholder alignment session
Output tiers
  • Quick wins — current sprint, low effort
  • High-impact improvements — 30–60 day horizon
  • Strategic initiatives — 90-day roadmap
Output
Priority matrix and 90-day roadmap, reviewed and approved by your product and engineering leads before execution begins.
Phase 04Design

Production-ready design artifacts built for how developers actually build — not for how designs look in a portfolio. Every screen is annotated. Every interaction is specified.

Deliverables
  • Task flows and user journey maps
  • Annotated wireframes
  • High-fidelity UI screens in Figma
  • Interactive prototypes
  • Design system documentation
Design principles
  • Designed for implementation constraints
  • Interaction specifications included by default
  • Component reuse documented for dev handoff
  • Responsive and accessibility considerations noted
Output
Figma design file with organized frames, interaction annotations, component documentation, and a developer handoff checklist.
Phase 05Validation

Designs are reviewed and validated with the product team, engineering, and key stakeholders before anything goes to a sprint. No surprises in development.

Review checkpoints
  • Product team design review
  • Developer feasibility review
  • Usability testing where applicable
  • Stakeholder sign-off session
What gets resolved
  • Edge cases and error states
  • Technical implementation constraints
  • Stakeholder alignment on interaction decisions
  • Open questions before sprint start
Output
Signed-off design file, developer handoff package, and a changelog documenting all validation decisions and reasoning.

Frequently Asked

Questions every product team asks before signing.

What exactly does "free until validated" mean?
We conduct the audit and deliver the findings report at no charge. If your development team or business stakeholders review the report and determine the findings are actionable and worth addressing, you pay the agreed fixed fee ($600–$1,800). If the audit doesn't surface issues your team considers worth acting on, you owe nothing. It removes the risk from the first conversation.
Do you work with teams that have no design system yet?
That's the typical starting point. Most industrial SaaS products we work with have no component library, no documented interaction patterns, and a codebase full of one-off UI decisions. The UX Debt Remediation engagement specifically includes a design system foundation — token set, core component documentation, and a pattern library — as a deliverable.
We've had poor results with design agencies before. What's different?
Most agencies deliver aesthetically polished work that's disconnected from how the product is built and how users actually operate. We specialize in industrial operational software — which means we understand work order workflows, PM scheduling logic, and why a field technician needs a 3-tap task completion path on a gloved-hand device. No domain orientation required.
Can the audit scope expand into a retainer or remediation project?
Yes — and it's the most common path. Many clients use the audit report to build internal business justification for a UX investment. The priority matrix from the audit becomes the retainer backlog. You're not starting from scratch — you're executing against an evidence base we built together.
How do you collaborate with our engineering team?
Every deliverable includes a structured developer handoff in Figma — annotated interaction specifications, component documentation, and responsive behavior notes. We also run a dedicated developer review session before handoff to resolve feasibility questions before they become rework. We design for implementation constraints, not in spite of them.
How quickly can we begin?
Book a 30-minute discovery call this week. If there's a clear fit, the audit begins within 5 business days and findings are delivered within 5–10 business days of kickoff. Retainer slots are limited — we work with a maximum of 4 concurrent clients to protect the quality and responsiveness of each engagement.
Clarity

No commitment required

Start with a free Product UX Audit.

30 minutes. We'll review your product together and identify your biggest workflow friction points — whether you engage us further or not. No pitch deck. No obligation.

Book the Free Audit

Pay $600–$1,800 only after your team validates the findings · Retainers from $1,200/mo · Max 4 concurrent clients