This project focused on designing a dentist facing client portal for ordering custom aligners and retainers using 3D scans. The goal was to connect clinics directly to treatment planning and manufacturing through one guided interface, replacing a highly technical internal system with something dentists could actually use. The work centered on removing friction from a process full of specialized steps and translating it into a workflow that feels clear, fast, and dependable inside a clinical setting.
The original platform was built for laboratory teams and supported deep manufacturing workflows that included 3D scan ingestion, multi stage treatment planning, provider selection, and fulfillment tracking. Although powerful, it was not suitable for dentists who struggled with excessive technical fields, no real time visibility, no visual confirmation of scan quality, and a process that required constant help from lab staff. The opportunity was to design a portal that hides the complexity while preserving the full logic behind the scenes. The scope included the complete product experience such as user flows, 3D upload interactions, treatment review, production decisions, tracking, and a new clinical visual language. The result was a high fidelity prototype created for validation and sales.
The strategy behind the product was grounded in three principles: automate instead of asking users to configure, build trust through visual clarity instead of dense data, and guide decisions instead of presenting wide open choices. This shaped every screen and reduced manual input, cognitive load, and the risk of ordering mistakes. The ordering experience was rebuilt around four steps: patient selection, treatment selection, scan upload, and treatment review. Each step answered one question at a time and allowed dentists to move from scan to production without interacting with any manufacturing level data.
The dashboard became the operating layer for clinics. It shows what cases exist, what needs attention, and what’s in production, replacing spreadsheets with a single, reliable overview. Order volume, case status distribution, production timelines, and patient-to-scan linking all appear at a glance. The 3D scan upload flow was treated as a critical trust moment, with live progress, format validation, scan-quality scoring, and immediate extraction checks so dentists know instantly whether a scan is usable. Once processed, the system automatically flags alignment, rotation, and crowding issues directly on the 3D model and explains each detection in clinical language with recommended next actions, shifting the dentist’s role from interpreting data to confirming decisions.
Production routing was also redesigned. Manufacturing providers are shown as capability-focused cards with one clear recommendation rather than comparison charts, guiding clinics toward the safest option without decision fatigue. After confirmation, each case becomes trackable through every stage: scan received, treatment approved, manufacturing, quality control, and shipping, with each step mapped to a clear visual state. This level of transparency removes the need for back-and-forth with lab teams and gives clinics a confident operational rhythm.
The outcome was a transformation of a lab-grade backend into a clinic-ready SaaS experience. Technical configuration disappeared from the dentist workflow, ordering time dropped significantly, scan trust increased through visible validation, treatment review became confirmation-based, and production tracking turned into a transparent process. Commercially, the prototype became a key demo asset, shortened product explanations, and allowed non-technical clinical teams to validate the platform. The work highlighted essential principles: progressive disclosure, visual confirmation, automation, clinical clarity, and trust through feedback, and reinforced that complexity belongs in the system, not in the interface. Future exploration would build on this foundation with cross-clinic analytics, patient lifecycle tracking, and direct collaboration tools between clinics and labs.
