Internal Operating System for Print Shops
CRM, fulfillment, financials, reports - all in one.
Web app
B2C
Automation, CRM
🧾 Overview
Printelligence is a custom-built order management and CRM platform for Bazaar Printing, a printing company known for its ultra-fast 3–4 day turnaround. As the business expanded to multiple store locations, their fragmented system of spreadsheets, emails, and third-party tools couldn’t keep up with the speed and coordination required.
Our objective was to design a centralized platform that could:
Unify fulfillment, proofing, inventory, and production tracking
Deliver real-time visibility across roles and departments
Support automation to reduce manual tasks and errors
Scale to meet the company’s long-term growth and location expansion
As Lead Product Designer, I led the product discovery, UX strategy, and design execution to bring this vision to life in close collaboration with product, research, and engineering teams.
Company: Bazaar Printing
Industry: Commercial print-on-demand
Timeline: 4 months MVP + ongoing iterations
Team Size: 4 core team members
My Role: Lead Product Designer
Team:
Emily Schwab – Product Designer
Arman Petrosyan – Product Designer
Lola Leigh – UX Researcher
👥 Users & Audience
Primary Users:
Sales reps quoting and managing orders
Account managers overseeing customer approvals
Designers preparing proofs and print files
Print operators handling machines and job flow
Store managers monitoring team capacity and turnaround
Secondary Users:
Customers needing fast, trackable proof approvals and delivery updates
🎯 The Challenge
“We promise customers a 3 to 4 day turnaround — but our internal tools were built for 2+ week cycles.”
Bazaar Printing had outgrown their patchwork of spreadsheets, emails, and off-the-shelf tools. Most available systems were designed for long lead times (7–21 days), but this business promised 3–4 day delivery. The existing tools couldn’t support that speed.
Our challenge was to design a fast, reliable, and user-friendly system that:
Tracked jobs from order to delivery
Automated routine tasks and inventory checks
Enabled real-time updates without overwhelming users
Scaled across multiple store locations
🧠 My Role & Team
My Role:
As Lead Product Designer, I defined the product direction and owned the entire design process — from early discovery and ideation to wireframes, UI, testing, and handoff. I also led design alignment with stakeholders and development.
Team Collaboration:
Arman refined and executed high-fidelity UI, ensuring design system consistency
Emily focused on prototyping and interaction flows across modules
Lola ran on-site interviews, workflow observations, and usability testing
Responsibilities:
Led product vision, research, UX strategy, and interaction design
Facilitated weekly working sessions with product, dev, and operations
Built a scalable design system used across modules
Partnered with engineering for efficient and clear handoff
Oversaw and prioritized design iterations based on user feedback
🔍 Research & Insights
We began with an in-depth discovery sprint to understand how teams worked across locations and what slowed them down the most.
Research Methods:
On-site observation with production and design staff
15+ user interviews across sales, design, and operations
Competitive analysis of Printavo, Presswise, and other industry tools
Key Insights:
Industry tools are designed for slow, bulk workflows — not fast turnarounds
Manual handoffs created constant friction between departments
Most errors occurred at proofing or order setup stages
Users needed a fast, frictionless UI that supported high pressure work
🧭 Information Architecture Decisions
The original system had no clear structure — job data was spread across spreadsheets, print queues, and inboxes. I led a full IA mapping effort to create clarity and hierarchy.
Key IA Improvements:
Defined 5 primary modules: Quotes, Orders, Proofing, Production, and Inventory
Created a linear status model: Requested → Approved → In Progress → Fulfilled
Introduced role-based visibility (e.g., operators see job queue, not quotes)
Consolidated job-related actions into one order detail page with collapsible sections
We visualized these flows early using flow diagrams and pressure-tested them with operations staff before committing to hi-fidelity design.
✍️ Design Artifacts
Low-Fidelity (Week 1–4):
Whiteboard maps of core workflows
Mid-fi wireframes in grayscale
Flow diagrams of user journeys (especially the order → print pipeline)
🧱 Design System & Token Strategy
To support scale and consistency, we built a modular design system in parallel with product development. I defined foundational tokens and reusable UI components that would hold up across fulfillment, proofing, and inventory flows.
Core Tokens Introduced:
Color: color-bg-surface, color-border-muted, color-text-inverse
Spacing: spacing-xs (4px), spacing-md (16px), spacing-xl (32px)
Typography: font-body, font-label-sm, font-display-lg
Motion: ease-snappy, fade-in-fast, delay-status-chip
System Work Included:
Component variants for buttons, badges, and status chips (with logic for “Pending”, “Approved”, “On Hold”, etc.)
Type scale and spacing rules applied across all layouts for vertical rhythm
Interactive states (hover, focus, disabled) designed for both mouse and keyboard inputs
Built to be responsive and accessible across desktop and tablet views
The system was documented in Figma using component properties and shared libraries, and handed off with parity to the frontend team using Storybook.
Hi-Fidelity (Week 5+):
Final UI in Figma with visual system applied
Component-based design using shared tokens
Responsive layouts for desktop and tablet
Accessibility Strategy
Accessibility was a core priority from the start. I worked with engineers to ensure our platform met WCAG 2.1 AA compliance across components and flows.
Key Accessibility Actions:
All colors passed 4.5:1 contrast ratio for body text and icons
Designed with keyboard navigation in mind — tab orders, focus rings, and skip links
Used semantic HTML roles for modals, dialogs, and tables
Added ARIA labels to key interactive elements, including form fields and status toggles
Supported motion reduction preferences, minimizing animations for sensitive users
All key flows were tested with VoiceOver and axe DevTools to validate screen reader compatibility and DOM hierarchy integrity.
Usability Testing & Iteration
We conducted usability testing throughout the design process to validate flow comprehension, identify friction, and prioritize refinements.
What We Tested:
Quoting to fulfillment flow
Proof approval interaction
Job status visibility and filtering
Bulk actions and inventory updates
How We Tested:
Moderated sessions with real print shop operators (via Zoom and in person)
Prototype testing using Figma interactive flows
Observation during in-store dry runs and simulated job entry exercises
What Changed as a Result:
Reorganized sidebar hierarchy to reduce navigation loops
Added inline tooltips and “what’s next” cues in multi-step flows
Made job status chips more prominent and tappable to reduce scanning time
🧷 Case Study Summary
This project was more than just designing a tool — it was about aligning speed, clarity, and real-world operations into a system that could scale confidently with the business. By automating bottlenecks and improving visibility, we helped Bazaar Printing uphold its turnaround promise without burning out teams.
As a Lead Product Designer, I drove the product vision, guided a multi-disciplinary team, and delivered a platform that transformed how orders moved from idea to delivery.
🧠 Looking Ahead
While we successfully shipped a fast, scalable system, there are several opportunities I’d pursue in future iterations:
Extend the design system to support mobile-first workflows for operators using tablets on the production floor
Introduce AI-powered auto-tagging of high-priority jobs based on due dates and complexity
Refine job history and audit trails to support multi-user accountability
Improve bulk job actions and keyboard shortcuts for advanced users in high-volume shops
Design is never finished - but we built a strong foundation that can support new features without compromising clarity or speed.
Selected work
[2022 -2025]
