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VR Maker — Full Platform Redesign

Rebuilding a decade-old spatial platform from the ground up to set a new standard for immersive content creation.

Role

Lead Product Designer

UX strategy, information architecture, interaction design

Duration

6+ months (ongoing)

Tools

Figma, After Effects, Jira

Team

Web Tsai Platform Director

Jafee Cho Product Manager

Jerry Liao Technical Manager

Abner Wang Front-End Developer

Sam Chen Front-End Developer

Jessie Hu Back-End Developer

Product by

Press & Media Launching 2026 Q4

The Challenge

A platform held together by a decade of patches

VR Maker is a cloud-based platform for stitching panoramic images, editing spatial content, and managing immersive virtual tours. After ten years of continuous development, the platform had accumulated severe technical debt. Features were bolted on to accommodate rapid demo timelines and one-off client requests, resulting in a fragmented interface where workflows that should take minutes stretched into frustrating multi-step ordeals.

The redesign had to navigate three simultaneous transformations: a complete UX/UI overhaul to meet modern SaaS standards, a full system architecture refactor for performance and scalability, and a business model restructure introducing tiered subscriptions with modular add-ons. The critical constraint was ensuring zero data loss during migration — every existing user's content had to transfer seamlessly to the new architecture.

A panoramic editor interface showing the modernized VR Maker workspace

Mapping out the legacy system architecture across both the viewer and editor. Identifying relationships between all features and functions, then restructuring with a new modular logic.

Left: Competitor analysis of similar platforms — evaluating interface patterns and feature sets. Right: Brainstorming sessions with the team to identify essential problems and determine which features should be retired.

Process

Redesigning while the plane is flying

Audit & Discovery

I conducted a comprehensive audit of the existing platform — mapping every feature, user flow, and pain point across the entire product surface. I interviewed power users and analyzed support ticket patterns to identify the highest-friction areas. This revealed that 70% of support requests stemmed from just three workflows: panorama stitching, marker editing, and tour navigation setup.

Architecture & Strategy

Working closely with the Platform Director and Technical Manager, I restructured the information architecture from scratch. I established a modular framework where each feature operates as a self-contained unit within a consistent shell — enabling the engineering team to refactor and ship incrementally rather than in a single risky release. I also defined the new subscription tier structure in collaboration with the business team, mapping features to value tiers.

Design System & Prototyping

I built a comprehensive component library using Figma variables for theming and responsive design, ensuring every new interface element was consistent, accessible, and developer-ready. High-fidelity prototypes were tested with existing users in three rounds of usability testing, with each round narrowing the gap between legacy mental models and the new interaction patterns.

Iterative Delivery & Migration

Rather than a big-bang launch, I designed a phased migration strategy. New modules ship alongside legacy equivalents, with usage analytics tracking adoption. This approach reduces risk and lets us validate each redesigned workflow with real user behavior before deprecating the old version. I created detailed handoff specs with motion guidelines in After Effects for complex transitions.

The redesigned VR Maker dashboard — clean, modular, and built for the workflows users actually perform daily.

Left: The panorama editor on desktop with contextual toolbars. Right: Complex settings redesigned to be immediately understandable.

Key Decisions

The choices that shaped the outcome

UX Strategy 01

Incremental migration over big-bang relaunch

A full relaunch would risk alienating power users who had built muscle memory around the legacy interface. I designed a parallel-run strategy where new modules launch alongside old ones, with gentle nudges and clear value propositions to drive adoption. This reduced migration risk and gave us real behavioral data to validate each redesigned workflow.

System Architecture 02

Modular feature framework

Instead of a monolithic redesign, I structured the product as independent feature modules within a unified shell. This let the engineering team refactor one module at a time, ship faster, and roll back safely if issues arose — critical for a platform with active paying users.

Business Strategy 03

Feature-to-tier mapping for subscription model

I collaborated with the business team to map features to subscription tiers based on actual usage data rather than assumptions. Power features that only 15% of users touched moved to premium tiers, while the core panorama workflow remained accessible — protecting conversion while creating clear upgrade incentives.

Impact & Results

What we're building toward

80%

Target reduction in onboarding time

45%

Projected decrease in support tickets

30%

Expected reduction in customer service response time

The redesign is currently in phased rollout, with the first two modules — the panorama stitcher and tour navigator — live with a beta cohort. Early signals are strong: beta users complete the panorama stitching workflow in under 3 minutes compared to the 12+ minutes typical on the legacy platform.

This project reinforced a belief I hold about enterprise redesigns: the biggest risk isn't getting the design wrong, it's breaking the trust of users who depend on the product daily. The incremental approach takes longer, but it respects the people who built their businesses on your platform. If I could restart, I'd have pushed for a dedicated user research phase before any design work began — we learned things in testing that would have saved weeks of exploration.