03 · Planning Service

Tangram

A planning service for surgeons specifying custom craniomaxillofacial (CMF) implants — a new, end-to-end system built from information architecture through to click-through prototypes ready for development handover.

Senior UX Designer · DePuy Synthes, J&J MedTech

Picking up a project mid-flight

I joined as the only UX designer remaining on the team, after the previous designer had already left. What I inherited was a set of late-stage feature flows with little context behind them — I could see what had been designed, not why. Rather than keep patching forward, I went back to the original briefing documents and rebuilt the process map myself.

Fixing the structure, not just the screens

The workflow as I found it moved in a zigzag — jumping between sections for small changes, with each stage only loosely dependent on the one before. I restructured it into horizontal bands, so the journey became genuinely linear: a user's progress depended on their previous answers, and — critically for a process this detailed — they could pause and return without losing their place.

Tangram feature flow screens showing surgeon preference selection for custom CMF implant planning, including diagnosis and graft type options.

Reactive feature flow — options narrow as the surgeon's choices are made.

On information architecture

"I think of this service like a meal prepared by a Michelin-starred chef: the user shouldn't need to touch the ingredients or the method. What they can do is choose what suits their taste."