Galaxy Access Control
Reimagining access control for the modern era
Project Overview
A five-year journey to modernize a legacy access control platform, launch a cloud-first product, introduce AI into company workflows, and design business-critical tools that reshaped internal operations. All while navigating deep technical and organizational complexity.
My Role
As the Lead Product Designer, I was responsible for:
– Owning research, UX, UI, prototyping, and design systems
– Presenting designs directly to the executive team
– Working hand-in-hand with backend and frontend engineers to validate feasibility
– Leading stakeholder alignment across support, training, and dealer-facing teams
– Building internal tools and AI prototypes to drive innovation
Project Outcomes
– Delivered Galaxy’s first unified, cloud-first access control platform, launched in beta with real dealers and now publicly available
– Improved existing customer experience with a full mobile redesign of LaunchPoint
– Reduced conference costs by over 60% through creating a digital sales catalog, and cut support load by 50% with an AI-powered chatbot
– Introduced modern design systems, rapid prototyping, and internal AI tools, helping shift a legacy organization toward a faster, innovation-driven culture
Introduction
When I joined Galaxy Control Systems in late 2020, I stepped into a company with over 30 years of history in the access control industry, and decades of accumulated software.
Comparison: System Galaxy | Galaxy Nova UI
The challenge
On my first day, I opened System Galaxy, their flagship Windows application, and saw the weight of history: powerful features buried in an outdated UI, dealer workflows reliant on CSV sheets, and a cloud companion app (LaunchPoint) that looked more modern but lacked depth.
Galaxy had made a strategic decision: unify both products into a single, modern, cloud-first platform that could meet the needs of their long-time enterprise clients and attract a new generation of customers. My role as the first and only designer on the project, was to lead that transformation.
Legacy Complexity
System Galaxy was feature-rich but outdated, requiring dealers to navigate dense UIs and CSV workflows that were hard to learn and use.
Feature Fragmentation
Existing systems had fragmented functionality, forcing users to juggle between two incomplete systems.
Backend Bottlenecks
Development of a new backend and APIs lagged behind, blocking many of the front-end features and slowing overall progress.
Dealer-Centric Pressure
Dealers expected powerful, flexible tools to manage installations across small businesses and enterprise campuses, while end users demanded simplicity.
Onboarding & discovery
In the first months, my PM and I were hired as the foundation of a new team whose mission was to build the next generation of Galaxy’s access control software.
We dove into onboarding right away: sitting in dealer trainings, shadowing support staff, and speaking with installers and enterprise admins to see how access control was managed day to day. We also audited both System Galaxy and LaunchPoint, not just listing features but studying how they fit into real workflows, where they worked, and where they fell short.
This immersion gave us a clear view of the culture, best practices, and pain points of the industry. From there, we built personas (dealer tech, enterprise admin, support agent) and mapped the key workflows: door configuration, credential assignment, and access scheduling, that informed our future progress.
Researching current product offerings
A key part of our onboarding was immersing ourselves in Galaxy’s existing suite of software. The breadth of features was immediately striking: from managing electronic door locks and integrated alarm systems, to handling photo IDs, badge printing, and visitor management. System Galaxy had evolved over decades into an incredibly powerful tool, but that depth came with complexity.
Competitor research
Understanding the competition was just as important as understanding Galaxy itself. Early in the project, Galaxy flew us to Dubai for an Infosec conference where they were showcasing their latest offerings. The event brought together many of the leading access control companies, which gave us the rare chance to explore competitor products first hand and speak directly with their representatives about where the industry was heading.
Training
Alongside the conference, we also participated in Galaxy’s own training course, which helped close key knowledge gaps in how their systems were deployed and supported. Seeing the competition up close, while deepening our grasp of Galaxy’s existing approach, provided us with invaluable context. It sharpened our perspective on what was already working in the market, where others were falling short, and where Galaxy had the opportunity to differentiate with its next-generation platform.
UX Planning
As our research phase wrapped up, we moved into UX planning, translating insights into structure and priorities.
We mapped the information architecture of the entire platform: from doors and controllers to credentials and schedules, and facilitated collaborative workshops in Miro with executives, engineers, and support staff.
These sessions helped us align on critical workflows, define MVP priorities, and establish a shared blueprint that bridged customer needs, business goals, and technical feasibility.
Galaxy stand during Infosec conference in Dubai
Miro board feature breakdown
Miro board prioritization
Customer research with Dovetail
Once we had a clear picture of the company and its competitors, we turned to the customers themselves. We wanted to validate the hypotheses we had formed during early development, so I created an interview plan, scheduled sessions with current clients, and studied the different types of businesses using Galaxy’s systems. These conversations gave us a direct line into the realities of day-to-day access control, from small offices to enterprise campuses.
To manage the growing volume of insights, I introduced Dovetail into our workflow. For a solo designer, it was a game changer. The tool allowed me to automatically transcribe interviews, highlight and tag key moments, and build a searchable, visual map of research data. This meant I could quickly pull up direct customer quotes during team debates — a powerful way to ground decisions in real feedback.
The platform also made it easy to share findings with stakeholders. Instead of static notes, I could present clear patterns and visual evidence of what customers were saying. This transparency built trust across the organization and helped us secure buy-in for design decisions.
Equally important, we kept the relationship with participants alive. Many interviews were open and candid, and customers were often eager to share novel ideas. We circled back to them during later design phases, sharing prototypes and gathering feedback. Seeing their input reflected in the evolving product gave participants a sense of ownership and strengthened Galaxy’s relationship with its partners — turning customers into allies.
Research findings
Our research revealed a consistent pattern across dealers, installers, and end customers.
System Galaxy was valued for its depth, but its interface and workflows were overly complex, making routine tasks frustrating and error-prone.
LaunchPoint, on the other hand, provided a cleaner cloud experience but lacked critical features, forcing users to rely on multiple tools in parallel. Dealers emphasized the need for faster credential assignment, clearer door and device configuration, and simplified scheduling - tasks that represented the bulk of their daily workload.
Support staff highlighted that many customer questions stemmed from confusing interfaces rather than technical limitations.
Taken together, these findings shaped the foundation of our MVP. They underscored the need to unify power and simplicity: retain the robust functionality dealers relied on, but deliver it through a streamlined, mobile-friendly experience that reduced training overhead and improved usability.
Designing solution
With research synthesized and aligned with stakeholders, we began shaping the product’s visual identity. Galaxy’s existing interfaces felt dated and cluttered, so it was clear the new platform needed more than just improved workflows: it needed a modern, intuitive look and feel that could stand alongside competitors and attract a new generation of customers.
Customer Dashboard
We made a deliberate choice to focus on the desktop experience first, since it carried the majority of dealer workflows and enterprise-level configurations. Mobile, while important, served a different purpose: enabling field technicians to perform quick, task-specific actions on-site.
By separating these contexts, we could design each environment to play to its strengths, rather than trying to cram the same complexity into both.
Customizable customer log in
Expandable customer information
Customers dashboard
In-depth Customer view
This is the primary interface where you have maximum control and access to the system. It allows you to effortlessly navigate between various system components like Operators, Cardholders, Hardware, Access Groups, I/O Groups, Event, Reports, Cameras and more.
Navigation from customers list to company view
Company view: operators
Navigating Customer view
Navigating through the customer view is streamlined to ensure a smooth user experience. Dealers can swiftly move between various sections by using the intuitive interface, ensuring they can locate pertinent information or perform necessary actions without any hindrance.
This level of navigation efficiency is a critical aspect of the overall design, helping to minimize confusion and allow users to utilize the system to its maximum potential.
Menu navigation prototype
Company view: cardholders
Managing doors
In the Manage Doors segment of the interface, each door in the system can be independently monitored and controlled. Access rules and schedules can be set for each individual door, providing a robust level of security control.
Furthermore, any activity related to a door is recorded for review, ensuring you can track and monitor access. This high-level control, coupled with meticulous monitoring, enhances the overall security of any facility managed through the Galaxy API, promising a seamless and secure user experience.
Dorm form UI demonstration
Quickly issue commands UI
Edit door form UI
Responding and managing events
Using customer events, you can swiftly attend to any system anomalies, thanks to real-time notifications and alerts. The system events are comprehensively logged for historical review and future insights. The flexible nature of this feature allows you to customize alerts based on the importance of the event, providing an extra layer of security control and peace of mind.
These features ensure minor issues are promptly addressed before they escalate, ensuring smooth operations and maintaining system integrity.
Event response UI
Managing galaxy hardware
The management of Galaxy hardware, including Galaxy Clusters, Panels, and Boards, has also been made easy and intuitive. This allows partners to effortlessly set up, manage, and troubleshoot hardware components.
Additional features include configuring and monitoring access points, efficiently managing resources, and having better control over the overall system. This further enhances the user experience ensuring that partners can handle every aspect of the infrastructure with minimal training or technical expertise.
Hardware tree UI
Responsive forms
This project required mastering forms and various user input formats. All components of the system could be viewed or edited, often displaying large quantities of information that users had to navigate before submitting their input. After exploring many display options, I decided to create more dynamic, responsive forms that appear promptly when needed, without disrupting other interface elements and maintaining user context. I also implemented restrictions on form width and the maximum number of fields per row.
Example of form UI appearance
Add Access Group form
Anatomy of a form
Form Header – Contextual information that adapts depending on the item type (e.g., Door, User, Panel), giving users immediate clarity on what they’re editing.
Form Content – Standard input fields for core attributes such as name, type, and group.
Expandable Controls – Collapsible sections that house advanced options (access groups, schedules, lock controls, event alerts) without overwhelming the main flow.
Form Controls – Final confirmation actions (e.g., save, delete) placed consistently at the bottom for predictable navigation.
Crafting the design system
Building a design system for an enterprise platform is never simple. The complexity of the organization and the product ecosystem means every component must work across multiple contexts and teams. For Galaxy, I created a system that became the foundation for consistent design and shared components across marketing, design, and development.
As the only designer on the project, I took an incremental approach. Instead of trying to build everything upfront, I grew the system organically: each new screen or flow I designed added new reusable components to the library. Over time, this library evolved into a scalable system with auto-layout, properties, and constraints that clearly documented behavior.
I followed an atomic design approach, building small, flexible elements first (buttons, fields, icons), then combining them into larger, modular components (forms, cards, navigation patterns). This gave both designers and developers greater control and customization while ensuring a cohesive experience across the platform.
Example of a form fields UI component in Figma
Color design system that was translated to developers 1:1
Using Figma Auto-Layout for components
Various forms configurations
The result was more than just a set of visual styles. It was a shared language that aligned engineering and design, accelerated iteration, and laid the groundwork for consistent, modern user experiences throughout the product.
Using Prototypes to Communicate Design Decisions
To align stakeholders and reduce ambiguity, I maintained a constantly updated interactive prototype of the platform.
This allowed executives, engineers, and even dealers to experience workflows directly instead of interpreting static screens.
Item settings pop-up
Secondary menu items dropdown
Going above and beyond
While leading the redesign of Galaxy’s core platform was my primary mission, I also took on several side initiatives that helped modernize the company’s broader ecosystem and brought immediate value to different departments.
Mobile LaunchPoint Redesign
I revisited Galaxy’s mobile offering, updating its interface and workflows to better align with the redesigned desktop experience. The goal was to simplify day-to-day use for admins and field technicians, ensuring mobile could stand as a complementary tool instead of a diluted replica.
Digital Sales Catalog
For the sales team, I created a web-based digital display catalog that replaced expensive conference hardware and printed materials. It became a flexible tool for both conferences and everyday sales activities, enabling quick, interactive demos of Galaxy’s offerings and saving the company significant costs.
AI-Powered Support Chat
I designed and prototyped an AI-driven support chatbot capable of understanding Galaxy’s 500+ page documentation. This tool reduced the support load by 60% by handling routine customer questions, while giving users an always-available source of guidance.
Node Configuration Tool for Dealers
To improve dealer workflows, I developed a node-based planning tool that replaced outdated manual CSV methods for system installations. This gave dealers a more intuitive way to plan and configure access control systems, reducing errors and speeding up deployments.
The end result can still be exported into a familiar CSV or JSON format to use it for order fulfillment.
Conclusion
My time at Galaxy was defined by navigating the tension between legacy complexity and modern innovation. Leading the redesign of the company’s flagship access control platform, I worked at the intersection of research, UX strategy, design systems, and cross-functional collaboration. All while driving the product from concept to beta launch.
Alongside that mission, I took initiative to deliver immediate value through side projects: redesigning LaunchPoint’s mobile experience, creating an AI-powered support chatbot, building a digital sales catalog that saved the company over $80K annually, and designing a node-based planning tool for dealers.
These efforts not only modernized Galaxy’s software ecosystem but also demonstrated how design can spark cultural change inside a legacy organization. The experience reinforced for me that even in complex, slow-moving environments, persistence, curiosity, and a user-centered mindset can generate momentum and meaningful impact.
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