Video testimonial from Eric Fan, Founder and CEO, Lumos.
Refract Group2026
We design B2B software, and the brands and websites that sell it.
A lot of our product work is on software that got complicated for good reasons. We work from the product itself, sometimes inside the client’s team, and the same people do the brand and the website. Our studio is in Sydney, Australia, and we work between Sydney and New York.
- The product outgrew its first version.We designed Keeyu’s product from inside the team and built its design system.
- It grew one component at a time.We redesigned Atrium’s interface across the platform and built the design system that keeps it consistent.
- Every customer wants their own name on it.We designed Managed an identity that steps aside when an agency’s colours arrive.
What we think
Removing controls or adding more space can make a screen quieter while leaving the difficult decision untouched.
Complex software has to show people where they are, what has happened and what they can do next. Simplifying starts there.
Adding a progress bar does not establish that the user knows what to do.
A progress indicator earns its space when it answers something the person needs to know.
“Improve onboarding” is too broad to estimate, assign or verify.
A useful finding names the problem: invited users reach an empty workspace without knowing how to request access.
Do not dress an expert opinion up as something users demonstrated.
Analytics can show a drop between two steps without telling you why people left. Record both, then find out.
Start with a product sprint.
One problem, a fixed length, and a working prototype in front of your users at the end. If it’s worth building, you’ll know. If it isn’t, you’ll know that cheaper.
- One product or flow
- Fixed length
- Price agreed upfront
Audit
An audit of the product or flow as it is
Prototype
A clickable prototype of the fix
Test
What your users did with it, in their words
Plan
A build plan and estimate, yours to keep
In their words.
Questions
Yes. Refract is a studio in Sydney, Australia, and we design B2B software. For Keeyu, which had raised its pre-seed round when we started, we designed the product from inside the team and built its design system. For Lumos and Managed, both at seed stage, we designed the product and built the design system. For Atrium, a pre-seed CRM for founders and salespeople, we refreshed the interface across the platform and built its design system. Product design starts from $10,000 a month.
Yes. At Keeyu we were embedded in the product team and designed from the real product. We began in their staging environment and worked in weekly sessions with their product and engineering team. An embedded team costs from $10,000 to $30,000 a month.
Yes. The same team does product design, brand and the website. Our work with Keeyu covered product, web and motion.
With a small first piece of work, so you can see how we work before a bigger scope. Often that’s a UX audit or a product sprint. A sprint takes one problem, puts a working prototype in front of your users and ends with a plan for what to build next. On Lumos we began by auditing the planning and buying tool screen by screen.
Yes. Atrium’s product worked, but it had grown one component at a time and the small inconsistencies had added up. We audited the whole interface, sorted what was there into reusable parts and built shared patterns that carry their interaction states. We also built the design systems for Keeyu, Lumos and Managed, in code.
A closer look at the work
- Designing complex SaaS workflows: lessons from KeeyuHow relationships, progress and contextual guidance shape a usable product, and how to apply those lessons to your next difficult workflow.
- How to run a UX audit that leads to useful fixesA UX audit follows real tasks through your product, records where people get stuck and ranks fixes by user impact, evidence and the effort required.
- Prototype vs MVP: what should you build first?A prototype tests a question. An MVP is a usable first product. Choose the next build by the uncertainty you need to resolve and what real use requires.
Got a product that needs work?
Tell us what it does and where people get stuck.
Most teams start with a call, then a sprint or an audit.
The people you’d work with, from the first call to launch



