Sebastian Sebald

Software Architect at Reservix, Freiburg

I work at the intersection of code and user experience. Lately that means building a design system for a product that's two decades old, and for everything that comes next.

Notes

  • Modernize the Product, Not the UI

    Legacy software looks abandoned to new customers, while long-time users ask for nothing to change. The usual answer is a redesign that tries to satisfy both, and it rarely ends well.

  • Where the Map Ends

    A modern frontend had been quietly hiding underneath a legacy UI. Taking the disguise off was supposed to be the visible payoff. What followed was something else: organizational inertia, hard conversations, and workflows users had quietly built around the product's flaws.

  • Failing Forward at Design Systems

    Building a design system for a 20-year-old product looked like a tidy problem on paper. Components, tokens, documentation. Every assumption I had fell apart along the way, and I slowly learned to stop confusing the map for the territory.