Year
Feb'26 – Mar'26
Tools
.webp){kind=small}
Focus
Research, IA, Enterprise UX
& AI Vision
Deliverables
Phased strategy, Guided Tool Finder, Enterprise ecommerce,
AI-assisted product discovery
Role
UX Researcher & Designer
InTech: Rethinking Industrial Commerce
InTech is a global mechanical engineering company specializing in high-precision tooling systems for industries including aerospace, automotive, medical devices, defense, and robotics. The company generated nearly 95% of its revenue through distributors, while leadership envisioned expanding into direct-to-customer commerce and AI-assisted product discovery. Partnering with a Senior UX Researcher, I helped define the research, product strategy, information architecture and experience design needed to modernize a fragmented enterprise platform without disrupting existing distributor relationships.
The Challenge
How might we modernize fragmented catalog-led purchasing experience and help technical buyers make confident purchasing decisions, without calling a sales rep while protecting the distributor network behind 95% of revenue?
Business Context and the tension
Ground Reality :
-
95% revenue from distributor networks
-
Relationships built over decades
-
Prior D2C attempts strained those relationships
C-Suite Vision
-
Grow D2C
-
AI-powered commerce
-
Self-service
-
Modern Experience
User Challenge
Distributors, technical consultants and engineers purchasing products that are:
-
Highly technical
-
Expensive
-
Compatibility-sensitive
-
Difficult to compare
As a result, even expert users fall back on phone calls to validate a decision before they place an order.
Understanding the ecosystem
Before proposing anything, we needed to understand how industrial purchasing actually works ; who decides, what gets validated and where the platform currently stops being useful. So, we interviewed the stakeholders and users, evaluated the workflows, conducted competitive analyis and understood the business constraints shaping industrial purchasing decisions.
8 Stakeholder Interviews
(leadership, sales, operations, customer support )
13 User Interviews
(distributors, technical consultants, engineers, small manufacturers)
End to end
Platform Audit
Competitive
Benchmarking
My role: I co-moderated the interviews, owned the platform audit and competitive benchmarking, and led synthesis into the product strategy alongside a Senior UX Researcher.
Key Insight 1: The pieces already existed, they just didn't talk to each other
These screens reveal something important: the existing experience already contains pieces of a useful system : a guided flow, machine compatibility, CAD files, product relationships and a shopping list. The problem is that these pieces do not work together as one coherent decision-making experience, that is why manual guidance and validation is required.
Deeper UX Flaws
-
Rigid, linear workflows : A fixed path takes all the users through the catalog, without understanding user needs and goals.
-
Outdated web UI standards : It is not intuitive for modern users and introduce unnecessary friction into the user journey.
-
Technical depth without clarity : CAD, specifications and documentation exist but are difficult to interpret.
-
Power users ( distributors, technical consultants, engineers) wanted technical depth and speed. They want the CAD files and diagrams to be upfront and easily accessible, and tools to filter by specification and compatibility for easier product discovery.
-
Incomplete commerce flow: Users still relied on phone calls for validation, pricing, inventory and ordering.
Rigid search paths
Confusing entry points
Weak compatibility guidance
Manual Validation
Slow Purchases
I know exactly what I need. I call to check the compatibility $XXXX part and place the order.
- Distributor, 10+ years in the trade
Key Insight 2 : Two Buying Modes
There are two types of users : Expert buyers (distributors, technical consultants, engineers) and Occasional buyers (small manufacturers, first-time purchasers). Both groups were failed by the same linear flow, for opposite reasons. Experts are being walked through steps they don't need and occassional buyers are dropped into a filtered catalog with no orientation.
Key Insight 3 : Fear of Channel Cannibilazation
Business goals conflicted. Leadership had a vision to grow D2C and use AI to change the nature of product discovery.
Sales wanted to protect distributors relationships, which had been strained a few times in the past due to similar efforts towards D2C.
Product UX strategy
Empower users with the right information, at the right time so that they can make technically confident purchasing decisions, while balancing business goals and the long-term AI vision.
01
Guided Discovery
Move from rigid catalog product discovery to an adaptive
user-centric discovery.
02
Configuration Workspace
Move from a product search to a sophisticated console for intuitive configuration and technical validation.
03
Engineering Copilot
Move from a multi-step tedious process to a conversational, frictionless purchasing experience.
Guided Discovery
Entry
Narrowing
Configuration Workspace
Engineering Copilot
Addressing the Fear of Channel Cannibilization
Expected Product Impact
Reflection