1. Challenge & Strategic Alignment

We were commissioned to overhaul the platform for Judicium Education, the leading schools' data protection adviser in England and Wales. JEDU is a purpose-built compliance platform designed exclusively for schools and Multi-Academy Trusts. We took over a legacy system that was partially built, requiring immediate modernisation to handle complex compliance data while remaining user-friendly for educational professionals.

Goals

Business Goals: Create a modern, high-performance UI to gain a competitive edge in the school compliance market and improve product delivery speed.

Strategic Kickoff: I led the transition from the inherited build to a new vision, adapting JEDU’s recent rebrand for the digital platform. We had to balance UI modernisation with a cautious approach to UX upgrades to ensure compatibility with existing legacy code.

2. Process, Team, and Design Phase

The project required transforming dense information flows into a professional tool that allowed education boards to manage actionable audits and school-wide compliance.

Roles and Responsibility

Design Leadership & Execution: Myself (Lead UX/UI Designer). I was responsible for driving the overall design strategy, facilitating workshops, overseeing and working directly on the transition from wireframes to the final UI.

Team Members: I worked in close collaboration with the Totally’s development team and stakeholders to ensure that the new design language was seamlessly integrated into the partially built product.

Design phase and testing strategy

Iterative Rollout: We released the software in stages, regularly testing changes with the senior leadership team and a core group of existing users to gather real-world feedback.

Technical Feasibility: I maintained a constant feedback loop with developers. While the UI was easily adapted, we carefully vetted UX improvements to ensure they wouldn't break the legacy codebase.

Information Architecture: We focused on "Simplified Data," restructuring the hierarchy so users could navigate complex processes like building an audit or completing a questionnaire without cognitive overload.

3. Execution & Goal-Driven Design

The execution transformed a cluttered legacy environment into a streamlined, role-based workspace prioritising clarity and speed.

Specialised Tooling

Intuitive Form Builder: I designed a custom form builder that allows education board users to create actionable audits, which are then exported as professional PDFs for schools.

Multi-Stage Questionnaires: We built a simple, multi-stage onboarding questionnaire for end-users to complete before assessors arrive on-site, streamlining the pre-assessment phase.

Foundational Systems & UI Innovations

Design Token Structure & Modals: I implemented a new design token system where all table data opens into a modal. This allows users to enter or edit data and return to the table instantly without losing their place in a large data set.

Progress-Driven Data: To optimise screen real estate, I replaced donut charts with progress bars. This streamlined the visual data, allowing more space for the tables that form the integral core of the section dashboards.

Role-Based Views: I designed personalised welcome boards, ensuring users only see the compliance tasks and metrics relevant to their specific role.

4. Measurable Impact & Results

The redesign successfully shifted JEDU from a complex legacy tool to a modern, efficient B2B compliance powerhouse.

Direct Resulting Impact

15% Increase in Workflow Efficiency: Intuitive workflows and modal-based data entry significantly reduced the time required to complete core compliance tasks.

Streamlined Reporting: The new form builder and PDF export functionality improved the speed and accuracy of delivering actionable audits to schools.

Competitive Differentiation: By balancing technical robustness with a premium user experience, the JEDU platform solidified its position as the market leader for school data protection.

Summary

The successful transformation of the platform demonstrates that even the most complex, data-heavy legacy systems can be made intuitive through strategic UX intervention. By balancing technical constraints with role-based personalisation and modular UI, we delivered a high-impact solution that provides a premium user experience without compromising technical robustness.