Case study/Education
Modernizing the UI of a training-software product (CaT Concepts)
One unicrew engineer mapped the existing implementations in CaT Concepts' application onto a set of new UI components that already existed.
CaT Concepts and Training GmbH, a German company providing IT services for education and education management, had a set of new UI components already in place and a product still running on legacy UI elements. unicrew did the work between the two: one engineer, mapping the existing implementations onto the new components without losing functionality.
- Client
- CaT Concepts
- Focus
- Education
- Market
Germany- Engagement
- Single-engineer UI modernization
- Stack
JavaScript
PHP
Outcome at a glance
What this project delivered.
- 01Legacy UI elements replaced with the new component set that already existed
- 02The existing implementations carried onto their modern equivalents, functionality intact
- 03One unicrew engineer on the project, "an extremely good fit to the problem that we have described"
- 04unicrew, in the client's words: "super responsive and did exactly as we agreed upon"
The challenge
CaT Concepts hired unicrew for something narrow and clearly stated: modernize the UI of its application by replacing the old implementations with new ones. The new UI components already existed, so nobody needed to design them.
The mapping was the hard part. Each existing implementation had to arrive on its modern equivalent with its behavior unchanged, and that is the kind of migration where a small miss quietly removes a feature users depend on. The interface looks finished, the one control somebody used every morning is gone, and it gets reported by a user rather than caught by a test.
Our approach
unicrew ran it as a single-engineer engagement, and the client’s own account of the team is one employee. The work replaced the legacy UI elements with the new components and carried the existing implementations onto their modern equivalents. That is the whole of a UI modernization like this one: the design-system components are given, and the job is making sure the behavior that lived on the old element still lives on the new one.
Communication ran through virtual meetings. The client’s account of the delivery: unicrew “did exactly as we agreed upon.”
Results
The client named the measure themselves, and it is a count rather than a percentage: “number of old implementations replaced by new ones”. Their account of the delivery covers the rest. The work landed as agreed, and the engineer who did it fitted the problem as they had described it.
Interface work like this sits beside the heavier kind: the SaaS modernization for a paddle-sports center was a rebuild rather than a re-skin. Other clients describe their own projects on our client reviews page.
“They were super responsive.”
Richard Klees, Managing Director, CaT Concepts and Training GmbH
What the client says
The goal was to replace legacy UI elements with new UI components. The new UI components already existed, key challenge was to map the existing implementations to the new ones while not losing functionality. They were super responsive and did exactly as we agreed upon. The colleague they send to us was an extremely good fit to the problem that we have described.
04/Technologies
Technologies on this project
Frontend
- JavaScript
Backend
- PHP
05/Quick answers
The questions behind the project
What did unicrew do for CaT Concepts' training software?
CaT Concepts, a German company providing IT services for education and education management, had a set of new UI components that already existed and a product still running on legacy UI elements. unicrew did the work between the two: replacing the legacy elements with the new components, and mapping the existing implementations onto their modern equivalents so functionality was not lost. The components were never the hard part. The mapping was.
Why is mapping legacy UI onto new components risky?
Because the screen can end up looking finished while one interaction from the old implementation is quietly gone, and the people who find out are the users who relied on it. The client described the job the same way: the new UI components already existed, and the key challenge was mapping the existing implementations onto them without losing functionality. unicrew took on that seam as a focused UI modernization, carrying each existing implementation onto its modern design-system equivalent.
Why was one engineer enough for this modernization?
Because the job was one defined piece of work rather than a rebuild: replace legacy UI elements with components that already existed, and carry the existing implementations across. The client reported one unicrew employee on the project and called the colleague sent to them "an extremely good fit to the problem that we have described". Communication ran through virtual meetings, and the client said unicrew "did exactly as we agreed upon".