UI Modernization for Legacy Applications
Turn an interface that looks like it was built fifteen years ago into a modern, fast, accessible product. Delivered in phases inside the app your team already runs, so nothing stops while it improves.
Most legacy applications are not broken. They do the job, the data is right, and the people who use them know every quirk. What they lack is an interface anyone would choose. This engagement rebuilds that interface one surface at a time: a design language with real tokens and primitives, then the screens that matter most, shipped behind flags inside the existing codebase.
Problems this solves
- The UI is a patchwork of Material or Bootstrap defaults that three generations of developers each styled differently
- Every new screen takes longer than it should because there is no shared component library, only copy and paste
- Users describe the product as slow, cluttered, or confusing, and the team has stopped hearing it
- A full rewrite has been proposed twice and rejected twice, because the business cannot stop for a year
- Multi-brand or multi-tenant theming is held together with overrides that break on every release
- Accessibility was never designed in, and a customer or an auditor has started asking about it
- Design decisions live in one person's head, so consistency depends on who picks up the ticket
How it runs
- Audit first: a two-week paid assessment of the current UI, the codebase, and the highest-traffic workflows, ending in a prioritized roadmap and a fixed quote for each phase
- Design language before screens: tokens, a small set of primitives, and a live gallery your developers use every day
- Ship incrementally: new surfaces land behind flags or scoped styling inside the existing app, so users see improvement in weeks and nothing regresses
- Leave it maintainable: documentation, a design workflow your team can run on its own, and code review through the handoff
Frequently Asked Questions
Do we have to rewrite the application?
No. Modernization happens inside the existing codebase, one surface or workflow at a time. Scoped tokens and flagged routes let new and old screens coexist until the old ones are retired. A rewrite is the last resort, not the plan.
Which frameworks do you work in?
Angular and React most often, including Angular Material, MUI, Nx monorepos, and Next.js. Older PHP and .NET frontends are fine too. The design system is framework-agnostic by construction, so the tokens and rules outlive whatever renders them.
How is this priced?
A fixed fee for the initial audit, then a fixed fee per phase quoted from the roadmap. You know the cost of each phase before it starts, and you can stop after any phase with a working, improved product.
What does my team need to provide?
Access to the codebase and a running environment, a few hours a week from a product owner, and short interviews with the real users of the top workflows. Screens are designed with them, not for them.
Can you match our brand or an existing design system?
Yes. Brand rules become tokens, and multi-tenant brands theme through a single cascade instead of per-tenant overrides. If a design system already exists, it gets extended rather than replaced.
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Retainers keep the design system alive once the initial phases ship.
A senior engineer who owns your product for a stretch, frontend first: architecture decisions, the design system, the API contract, pull-request review, and shipping the hard features, embedded with your team two to five days a week.
Learn moreEngagement
Fixed-fee project
Typical timeline
2-week audit, then 6-10 weeks per phase
Starting at
Custom scope
Who this is for
Product and engineering leaders with a working application that users tolerate rather than like, and a business that cannot pause for a rewrite. Not for greenfield products or marketing sites.
Related work
- Gave a six-brand healthcare platform one design system
Three redesigns on the same platform had each re-derived their palette, and one silently broke theming for five of six hospital brands. The fix was a real design system: three token tiers, shared primitives, a live gallery, and documentation the whole team now works from.
- Replaced a forms-and-email intake with a live clinical support queue
A national health system's clinical informatics team handled clinician support requests through web forms and email. They got a real-time queue with routing, coverage, and escalation, and the platform got its first modern design language in the process.
- Showed a dealership group where every vehicle's photos went missing
A dealership group could not tell which vehicles had photos live on which sales channels. Over four months the internal image hub gained trending metrics, channel-by-channel reconciliation, role-based access, and scrapers that verify listings on three public sites.
Talk it through
Describe what you're working with and you'll get an honest read on scope, cost, and whether this is the right fit.
Pricing is fixed per phase and quoted after the audit. Each phase ends with shipped screens, updated documentation, and a working product, so you can stop at any phase.