Making something complicated feel ordinary

A complete transformation of an online print service, redesigning everything from the customer journey to the production workflow behind it.

Case study overview

Printing online should feel as straightforward as printing at home.

Before Page Visions acquired Doxdirect, ordering printed documents online was far more complicated than it needed to be. Customers struggled to understand print options, file previews were unreliable, pricing wasn't always clear and many orders required manual intervention before they could reach production.

At the same time the business had ambitious plans for growth. The existing platform wasn't just difficult for customers to use. It was difficult for the production team to operate efficiently. Improving one without the other would simply move the bottleneck somewhere else.

Good customer experience doesn't stop at checkout. It should continue all the way to production.

Every decision had to make life easier for both customers and the print team.

Rather than approaching the project as a website redesign, I treated it as a complete product transformation. The customer journey, frontend interface, branding and production workflow all had to work together.

The upload experience became a guided process instead of a technical one. Customers received immediate feedback about their files, clearer pricing and confidence that what they were ordering was exactly what they expected.

Behind the scenes, structured job information flowed directly into production, reducing manual checking and allowing print operators to spend their time producing work rather than fixing orders.

Reducing friction from upload to dispatch.

The product evolved alongside the business.

My involvement began before the acquisition itself, supporting technical review and UX evaluation under NDA before helping shape what the platform could become. From there I led the transformation across product design, frontend development and branding while working closely with directors, developers and the production team.

Alongside delivering the product, I mentored designers moving from traditional print into frontend development, helping establish new technical skills within the team and creating a stronger connection between design and implementation.

The best digital products improve the business behind the interface.

Looking back, Doxdirect reinforced something that has stayed with me throughout my career. The visible interface is only one part of the user experience. Real improvements often come from understanding how information flows through an organisation and designing systems that support both customers and the people delivering the service.

The platform simplified ordering, reduced support requests and streamlined production because every part of the journey was considered together rather than optimised in isolation. Much of that original thinking still underpins the platform today.