STRATEGY
Allplan
Reinvigorating 30+ year legacy Architectural CAD.
As Europe’s first Architectural CAD software, Allplan had become an aging system needing reinvention. In 2009, Gray Holland joined as Chief Design Officer (CDO) to lead a new design strategy and experience overhaul, including build its first UX/UI team.
Allplan had coasted for years, neglecting its frustrated customer base. Internal stakeholders resisted change, and the UI, built on seven different frameworks, urgently needed unification. The level of modernization required was a steep uphill battle.
solution results
Reimagine with the Customer
First, we conducted a customer touchpoint cycle audit.
We engaged directly with Allplan’s customer base to uncover valuable insights into their needs. Then, we assembled our new interdisciplinary UX/UI team to explore, prototype, and test new ideas with customers. From there, we launched a series of "Light-haus" research projects to shape and test our guiding vision, addressing immediate priorities while informing our long-term, next-generation UX efforts.
The result was a strategic multi-year product roadmap, which included the launch of the CONNECT community portal, a company rebrand, UI reorganization, the creation of the "SnowWhite" design system with a 1,750+ icon set redesign, UI unification around the WPF framework, the development of a next-gen digital "T-Square" UI platform and node base modeler.