Graphic Design & UI/UX

Legacy Modernization

Modernizing outdated business systems and moving them toward an architecture your team can actually maintain.

What you get

Built properly, from day one.

In depth

Legacy Modernization, explained.

01The problem

Designs that can’t be built as drawn.

When design and engineering work in separate rooms, beautiful mockups meet technical reality late — and the shipped product ends up a compromise of both.

Most of that friction comes from decisions made without the other side in the conversation.

02Our approach

Design with engineering in the room.

Research, flows and interfaces are designed alongside the architecture, so what gets designed is what gets shipped.

We validate the flow with wireframes and clickable prototypes before spending time on pixel-perfect polish.

03Systems

Components, not one-off screens.

Interfaces are built from reusable components and design tokens that map directly to code, which keeps the product consistent as it grows.

New screens get faster to design and build because most of the pieces already exist.

04Handover

Specs engineering can build from.

You get organised Figma files, documented components and tokens — not a folder of static exports.

And because the same team builds it, there’s no lossy handover between a design agency and a development agency.

How we help

Where this fits in your business.

Research & UX

Understanding users and flows before anything gets pixel-perfect.

  • User and stakeholder interviews
  • Flow and information architecture
  • Usability testing on prototypes
What we build

Legacy Modernization: what we build.

Product UX

Flows, wireframes and prototypes validated with real users.

UI design

Polished interfaces ready for engineering handover.

Design systems

Components and tokens that scale with the product.

Prototyping

Clickable prototypes to test ideas before they’re built.

UX audits & redesigns

Finding what’s getting in users’ way — and fixing it.

Mobile app design

iOS and Android interfaces that follow each platform’s conventions.

How it works

  1. 01

    Discover

    Understand users, goals and constraints before sketching anything.

  2. 02

    Structure

    Flows and wireframes that get the product’s logic right first.

  3. 03

    Design

    High-fidelity UI and prototypes, reviewed with you each week.

  4. 04

    Hand over

    Specs, components and tokens engineering can build from directly.

Case studies

Other work we've shipped.

We don't have a published Legacy Modernization case study yet — here's a selection of other live products we've built.

Technology

What this is built with.

The real tools behind Legacy Modernization — not the full company stack, just what applies here.

PostgreSQL

Docker

PostgreSQL

Docker

PostgreSQL

Docker

PostgreSQL

Docker

PostgreSQL

Docker

PostgreSQL

Docker

PostgreSQL

Docker

PostgreSQL

Docker

PostgreSQL

Docker

PostgreSQL

Docker

PostgreSQL

Docker

PostgreSQL

Docker

PostgreSQL

Docker

PostgreSQL

Docker

PostgreSQL

Docker

PostgreSQL

Docker

PostgreSQL

Docker

PostgreSQL

Docker

Integrations

Tools and platforms we connect.

The services we build on and integrate with most often. Hover a tile to see its name.

Industries

Industries where this fits best.

Why Defox

Why teams build with us.

Senior

A small, senior team

Senior designers, engineers and AI specialists — not a roster padded with junior hires and account managers. Every project is led by the people who scoped it.

AI-first

AI-first, not AI-decorated

We use modern AI tooling throughout the build itself — from architecture to code — which is how a small team ships at a pace larger agencies can’t match. AI isn’t a feature we bolt onto client products for its own sake.

End-to-end

One team, full lifecycle

Strategy, design, engineering, and launch stay with the same team instead of being handed between vendors. You talk to the people building your product, not an intermediary relaying messages.

Yours to own

You own what we build

Full repository access and IP transfer at launch. We work for you, not as a dependency you have to keep paying to maintain access to your own product.

FAQ

Legacy Modernization: common questions.

Both — and that’s the point. Design happens alongside engineering, so what gets designed is what gets shipped.

Let's Talk

Need Legacy Modernization?

Tell us what you're building — we'll scope it honestly, including if it's not a fit.