ENVLaunch
Unifying animation
production workflows
TLDR
In the dynamic world of animation production, creating movie magic involves more than just artistic talent. Behind every frame lies a complex web of technical processes that can challenge even the most skilled teams. This is where ENVLaunch comes in - a tool designed to streamline how animation studios set up and manage their production environments.
While ENVLaunch was already making a positive impact in many studios, we at Twisted Mountain Animation (TMA) saw an opportunity to elevate it further based on prior user feedback. When I joined the team as their Senior Product Designer, one of my first major tasks was to reimagine ENVLaunch from the ground up.
This redesign went beyond surface-level improvements. It required a deep dive into the user experience, including extensive conversations with our user base to identify key pain points, prototyping and testing potential design solutions, and a comprehensive UI overhaul of both the Admin Portal and Launcher.
In the process, I recognized an opportunity to establish TMA's first design system which now serves as the cornerstone for all our products, ensuring consistency across our entire ecosystem.
The results? They were better than we could have hoped for:
User errors dropped by 43%
Admin Portal usage increased by 35%
System usability score improved by 19 points
Scope
My Role
Senior Product Designer
What I Did
User Research
Design Strategy
Usability Testing
Design System
Prototyping
Interaction Design
Timeline
Q4 2023 - Q2 2024
THE CHALLENGE
Redesigning ENVLaunch to simplify how animation studios manage production environments.
Leveraging our unique position.
At TMA, I enjoyed a unique advantage: direct access to our primary users. As both a software development company and animation studio, our in-house production team used ENVLaunch daily. This setup allowed me to rapidly test ideas and gather feedback, often starting with a simple Slack message.
This close collaboration provided invaluable insights that directly shaped my design decisions. As a result, I was able to craft solutions that perfectly aligned with real-world production needs.
The current state of ENVLaunch.
I kicked off the project with a deep dive into both the Admin Portal and Launcher, thoroughly examining the platform's current state. As I put the tools through their paces, a glaring issue became clear: despite serving a common purpose, these tools felt like separate worlds, each with its own interface and way of doing things.
This exploration highlighted a golden opportunity: bringing these tools together could make life much easier for our users. But before running with this idea, I knew I needed to hear from the people who use these tools day in and day out.
The existing Admin Portal and Launcher
RESEARCH SUMMARY
What did our users think of ENVLaunch?
The Launcher's scope was too narrow.
My user research revealed a critical insight: we had underestimated our users' technical capabilities. Of the 28 users surveyed, 17 experienced limitations with the Launcher that prevented them from working independently.
While the Admin Portal offered advanced functionality, access was restricted to technical staff. This created an unnecessary bottleneck, with advanced users frequently needing to request help for tasks they could have handled themselves - ultimately impacting their creative productivity.
I mapped existing workflows and identified gaps based on advanced user needs
Uncovering critical usability issues in the Admin Portal.
Technical staff feedback revealed significant usability challenges within the Admin Portal. Performance issues and an inconsistent interface severely impacted their workflow efficiency.
The interface particularly frustrated users with ambiguous interactive states - some elements appeared clickable but weren't functional, while active features blended with static content. When errors occurred, users were left without clear guidance or next steps, adding unnecessary friction to routine tasks.
Dramatized reenactment of the feedback gathered about the Admin Portal
Putting it all together.
Based on these research insights, I prioritized critical pain points and opportunities for improvement to steer the redesign. Working collaboratively with developers and project management, we strategically mapped these findings to our sprint cycles, balancing user impact with implementation feasibility to maximize our initial release.
I tracked my findings in Google Sheets and created Jira tickets for the dev team as needed
What this all leads to: our North Stars.
THE DESIGN SYSTEM
Crafting a unified design language.
The beginnings of our design system.
Recognizing a lack of visual consistency across our products, I initiated the development of our first design system. This comprehensive framework included a set of standardized components, spacing guidelines, colour palettes, and typography rules.
My goal was to create a flexible, scalable system to unify our product ecosystem, starting with the Launcher and Admin Portal. This approach boosted user familiarity through consistent visuals, streamlined development with a single source of truth, and improved our design team's efficiency in creating new screens and prototypes.
I created and established our design system using Figma
Accessibility-driven light and dark modes.
My commitment to accessibility and inclusive design drove me to take the design system further. I mapped our new colour palette to WCAG standards for both light and dark themes. This extra step ensures our interface remains functional and visually appealing across all user preferences and needs.
Several foundational components I created for TMA's design system
FINAL DESIGNS - LAUNCHER
Streamlining the old while adding the new.
Before - Why so many clicks?
A common pain point emerged among all Launcher users: locating environments between teams and toolsets required excessive clicks, leading to a loss of context. This issue particularly impacted artists, who frequently switch environments during their workflow. The existing design introduced unnecessary steps, hampering their productivity.
After - Speeding up navigation by 32%.
The redesign streamlined user navigation by providing direct access to desired environments, eliminating the need to navigate back to the previous screen. This optimization resulted in a significant improvement: users now locate their target environment 32% faster compared to the original design.
Prototype of the redesigned Launcher
Empowering our advanced users.
Technical workflows in the Launcher now empower advanced users to create local test environments and manage configurations independently. This reduces their reliance on technical support staff.
To maintain consistency, I incorporated these new workflows into the Admin Portal as well, reusing components where possible for a seamless experience across platforms.
Our advanced users are able to create and configure local environments right within the Launcher
FINAL DESIGNS - ADMIN PORTAL
A much needed overhaul in visuals and usability.
Before - Usability roadblocks.
The configurations page is the core of our Admin Portal, empowering technical staff to create environments through specific configurations such as Python command lines, package integrations and more.
However, our previous interface posed usability issues, hampering efficient environment creation and raising the likelihood of errors.
After - Clearing the path.
I redesigned the UI with a cell-based table layout, alternating row colours, clearly defined fields, and distinct hover and active states for rows and cells. My aim was to enhance scannability and reduce cognitive load to minimize errors.
I also added hotkeys for tabbing, multi-selecting, and copying/pasting, streamlining environment creation and empowering users to accelerate their workflows.
Redesigned configurations page
Say goodbye to page jumps.
Beyond the configurations page, I addressed another critical Admin Portal challenge: disruptive context switching. Users would lose momentum during routine tasks like package releases, as each action required loading a new page.
Given the straightforward nature of these workflows, full page loads felt unnecessarily heavy-handed. My solution was to implement a system of side panels throughout the portal. These panels allow users to access essential functions while staying anchored in their current context.
One of our several new side panels
THE REFINEMENT
Not everything went smoothly. Here were some changes I made based on user feedback.
The package releaser took us a little while to get right.
My initial design used a stacked progress bar to display package statuses. However, user testing revealed readability challenges when displaying more than nine statuses, particularly when similar colours were used for different states.
To address, I simplified the design by separating status indicators in the table layout. This change dramatically improved scannability and reduced cognitive load for users managing multiple jobs.
A second challenge emerged around job management: with hundreds of new jobs created daily, users struggled to track their submissions, often creating duplicates that increased hosting costs. I implemented two key solutions:
Organized jobs into intuitive tab categories for improved visibility
Added an 'Auto-Close Date' feature that automatically archives inactive jobs, reducing infrastructure costs
Making every pixel count.
Observing artists revealed a key pain point: the Launcher consumed valuable screen space during review sessions. As artists moved through their review queue, launching environments sequentially, they needed to keep both the Launcher and multiple work windows visible.
A modest reduction in the Launcher's width and header size created the breathing room artists needed. This small adjustment allowed them to keep the Launcher open during reviews while maintaining their full workspace.
THE IMPACT
I tracked key metrics for 3 months after launch, using analytics, surveys, and feedback sessions.
-43%
USER ERROR RATE
My analysis of our error logs showed a significant decrease in environment setup errors, boosting efficiency and reducing user frustration. This means that users are able to navigate the Admin Portal with confidence, while preventing potential production delays.
+35%
ADMIN PORTAL ADOPTION
I kept a close eye on daily active users for 3 months on either side of the redesign. The significant uptick in usage showed teams were now fully utilizing ENVLaunch's capabilities, confirming the redesign effectively addressed previous barriers to adoption.
+19
SUS (SYSTEM USABILITY SCORE)
The Admin Portal's SUS score increased from 64 to 83, while the Launcher improved from 71 to 76. Users reported smoother workflows, faster task completion, and more intuitive interfaces. Beyond metrics, these enhancements led to happier, more productive users - the true measure of success in my book.
Looking ahead.
Building on the success of this project, our next focus is building, Envisage - a powerful ERP solution designed to streamline project and pipeline management. Although still in development, it's already reshaping operations at TMA by consolidating time tracking, invoicing, and project management into a single, powerful system.
We're targeting a launch to other studios in late 2024 or early 2025, eager to share the game-changing benefits we've experienced with the wider creative community.
Some early mockups of Envisage
Our Maya tools also got the design system treatment
What I learned along the way.
The Power of Instant Feedback
Working alongside our daily users proved invaluable. With our team actively using the tools we were developing, I could gather feedback and validate ideas in real-time. This direct access made our design-test-iterate cycle incredibly efficient.
Exploring New Grounds
Working across disciplines revealed new perspectives. Collaborating with animators and production teams taught me their unique workflows and constraints, enabling me to design solutions that genuinely streamlined their work.
Building for Scale
Developing TMA's first design system demonstrated the importance of scalability. The flexible framework I created now unifies our product suite, ensuring consistent user experiences across Envisage and Maya tools.
