Redesigning Legacy Auditing Software for a National Financial Services Firm
A legacy system powering 200+ auditors across Australia was showing its age. The task? Give it a clean, modern UX without losing the speed, quirks, and workarounds veteran users had grown to rely on
Independent national auditing firm
Financial Services
Compliance Tech
Internal Tools
Challenge
The firm’s core auditing platform was built over a decade ago — packed with features, tangled in legacy logic, and held together by habit. New hires struggled to learn it. Long-time staff refused to let it go. It wasn’t just about UI — it was about trust.
The goal:
Modernise the system without disrupting workflows that had become second nature to expert users — all while uncovering the undocumented logic behind the scenes.
Results
Redesigned legacy workflows into clean, intuitive UI
Won over resistant users with hands-on workshops and familiar patterns
Turned undocumented behaviors into actionable specs
Boosted clarity and velocity across product and dev teams
Process
Evaluation & Discovery
Ran a heuristic review of the legacy UI (yes, it was rough)
Shadowed auditors to learn their habits, mental models, and pain points
Flagged where “friction” actually helped experts move faster — and where it didn’t
Stakeholder Alignment
Facilitated conversations between auditors, SMEs, and managers
Identified sacred workflows vs areas with room for change
Used prototypes to document hidden logic and backend quirks
Design, Prototype, Validate
Built an interactive prototype that blended UX best practices with legacy familiarity
Ran user testing and made fast adjustments
Led a 40+ person hands-on workshop — demoed patterns, explained tradeoffs, and invited honest feedback
Product Thinking & Dev Support
Helped rewrite vague backlog items based on actual user behaviors
Delivered design artefacts that clarified dev tasks and business rules
Balanced clean UX with real-world flexibility for power users
My Role
Brought in mid-project, I took point on UX and doubled as a product translator and logic detective.
Led the redesign of a mission-critical legacy tool
Bridged knowledge gaps between users, devs, and product
Rebuilt trust with users by showing, not telling
Conclusion
This wasn’t about flashy UI — it was about designing with empathy for people who lived inside the system every day. I helped the team move from guesswork to grounded design, gave auditors a voice in the process, and turned a decade-old platform into something everyone could get behind.