Context
Blings enabled companies to create personalized videos by combining Adobe After Effects compositions with dynamic customer data.
Motion designers created the content in After Effects, then moved to Blings to prepare and publish it. Although the two products worked together, they used different mental models.
Designers organized their work around compositions. Blings required them to create and maintain a second entity called Scenes.
Users had to translate between these concepts throughout the production process.
The Problem
Manual scene management added cognitive load, slowed production, and created rendering errors when mappings became outdated or incomplete.
Research with motion designers and Customer Success revealed that these mistakes were not caused by a difficult interface. The workflow exposed a technical concept that did not match how designers naturally worked.
The opportunity was not to improve scene management. It was to remove it from the user’s workflow.
Compositions were already the designers’ source of truth. The product needed to adapt to that mental model instead of introducing another one.
Key Insight
Extension redesign process in Figma
The Solution
I redesigned the extension around compositions, allowing Blings to generate and synchronize Scenes automatically in the background.
Rendering became a direct continuation of the creative workflow. Designers could move from After Effects to Blings without manually recreating or maintaining the project structure.
The redesigned extension also introduced:
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Clearer rendering progress and system feedback
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Simplified project navigation
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Version history and timestamps
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Fewer decisions before publishing
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Better visibility into errors and rendering states
Collaboration
The solution required close collaboration with frontend and backend engineers. It involved changes to synchronization logic, automation, and the way rendering states were communicated, not only a new interface.
Together, we balanced technical constraints with the goal of reducing complexity for users.
Impact
Reduced workflow completion time by approximately 50%
Fewer manual setup and synchronization steps.
Significantly reduced rendering errors
Removed failures caused by missing, duplicated, or outdated Scene mappings.
Simplified onboarding
Aligned the workflow with how motion designers already worked in After Effects.
Reflection
This project reinforced an important principle in my design process: before improving a workflow, question whether users should be required to perform it at all.
Removing Scene management created a simpler experience and a more coherent product model.