Case Study
·2025 / 2026
Vlier.com_
Restructuring a legacy industrial product page so that the most valuable user action — downloading a CAD file — became unavoidable.
Vlier — precision hardware since 1946
A division of Hutchinson Aerospace & Industry, manufacturing spring plungers and positioning hardware for aerospace, defense, and industrial manufacturing. Their buyers are engineers who need exact specifications before placing an order.
Redesign the product page UX
My role spanned UX research, visual design, and interactive prototyping — delivering two layout comps and dev-ready interaction specs for engineering handoff.
The most valuable action on the page was the hardest to find.
A CAD download is Vlier's strongest purchase signal — an engineer who downloads a CAD file is more likely than not to eventually buy. On the old page, that action was a tiny icon buried inside a spec table row. The only visible CTA was "Find a Distributor" — a mid-funnel action that skipped the most critical step entirely.
"A CAD download more likely than not turns into a sale — whether that's 2 months or 12 months from now."
— Vlier Sales Team‘Find a Distributor’ was the only visible CTA — a mid-funnel action placed before the user had any reason to trust the product. The highest-value action (CAD download) was invisible.
Engineers browsing product families and engineers ready to download CAD files have completely different needs. The old page tried to serve both in a single flat scroll with no separation.
Getting from a product page to a CAD download meant reading a dense table, finding a tiny icon in the right row, and hoping you clicked the right one. There was no scent trail.
Same user. Two different moments.
An engineer with a positioning problem. They’re comparing options across vendors — Vlier, JW Winco, Carr Lane. They need to scan product families, understand force ranges, and bookmark candidates. They’re not ready to download anything yet.
The same engineer, later. They’ve narrowed it down. Now they need exact dimensions — A through G, thread size, end force. They’re going to drop this into a CAD assembly. The download is the conversion. Everything else is friction.
The page needed to serve both workflows without forcing either to wade through what they don't need. That meant a tabbed layout where browsing and speccing each get their own space.
Every decision traced back to the engineer.
The old page was a single scroll serving both discovery and precision-data phases. I split these into two explicit tabs — Product Info and CAD/Specs. Clicking any part row automatically activates the CAD/Specs tab, moving the user forward without extra navigation.
I repositioned the CAD download as the most prominent CTA in the right column — persistent, always visible, and surfaced the moment a part row is clicked. ‘Find a Distributor’ moves to the Product Info tab where it belongs: after the engineer has validated the spec.
Vlier serves both domestic (inch) and international (metric) markets. The old table dumped all variants together. The redesign uses collapsible accordion sections with filter buttons — engineers working in one system don’t have to mentally filter out the other.
| Part | A | B |
|---|---|---|
| SL190 | 10-32 | 0.40 |
| SL250 | 1/4-20 | 0.50 |
The original table had all dimensions inline but no way to isolate a single part. The redesign adds row-click behavior: selecting a part number populates a dedicated specs panel in the right column with all dimensions labeled A through G, and auto-activates the CAD/Specs tab.
Try the redesigned product page.
Click rows to see specs populate. Switch tabs. Filter tables. Use the calculators. This is a working prototype of the production spec.
Knurled Knob Plungers
Knurled Knob Plungers
Product Description
Standard spring plungers offer long travel, large bearing surfaces and numerous material and design options including an optional locking element.
Typical Uses
- Positioning
- Indexing
- Ejecting
- Latching
- Detents
Delivered for development handoff.
Deliverables included two full layout comps, interaction specs, responsive breakpoint guidance, and a CTA hierarchy rationale tied to Vlier's conversion data. The core shift: stop treating the product page as a catalog — start treating it as the beginning of a sale.
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