CONTEXT AND BRIEF
The laser engraving industry runs on software built in the early 2000s. Nobody has fixed it yet.
EZ CAD and SCAPS control the majority of laser marking machines worldwide. Both were built in the early 2000s and neither has changed much since. During a previous industrial design project, I sat with operators using these tools every day and heard the same complaints: interfaces that felt like Windows 98, excessive clicks for basic tasks, no mobile access, and setup times of 8 to 12 minutes per job.
One jeweller told me: "I've been using EZ CAD for 8 years and I still have to Google how to do certain things." That sentence became the brief for Nova-Mark.
Client
Novamark
Industry
Industrial – B2B
Year
2024
Role
Solo UX/UI Designer
Duration
1 year
PROBLEM DEFINITION
A captive user base that had normalised the pain of software that hadn't changed in 20 years.
68% of 30 operators rated their software as "poor" or "very poor" on usability
6 out of 8 kept handwritten notes next to their workstation as weekly task reminders
41% had tried to switch to alternative software and returned to EZ CAD anyway, because it's what the laser hardware ships with
Setup time: 8 to 12 minutes per job
PROCESS AND EXPLORATION
The interface needed to be structured around how operators actually think about a job, not how the software's technical architecture happens to be organised. One clear mental model emerged from the research: select what you want to engrave, place it on the workpiece, refine the laser settings and run. That sequence became the three-panel layout.
Three features addressed the most painful research findings directly: Material Intelligence (automated laser config from material selection), an AI Design Assistant (laser-compatible vector generation), and a Template Library organised by use case.
1. Simplified workflow: The existing tools were built around the machine's logic, not the operator's. You opened the software and were immediately confronted with frequency fields and hatch parameters before you'd even decided what you were engraving. Nova-Mark flips that. Material first, design second, settings last. The sequence follows how a craftsperson actually thinks about a job. 2. AI Design Assistant (Implemented in a second phase): Most operators aren't designers. They know what they want on the piece but don't have the skills or the time to open Illustrator and build it. The AI assistant lets them describe it in plain language and returns three laser-compatible vector options in seconds. The result goes straight to the canvas, fully editable, ready to run. 3. Material Intelligence Setting laser parameters manually is where most errors happen. Too much power on gold and the piece is ruined. Too little on steel and nothing marks. Nova-Mark applies tested configurations the moment you select a material. Every common surface has a preset built from real operator data. Advanced users can override any value, but the right starting point is always there.
A modern SaaS interface for laser engraving built around how operators actually work, not how the underlying software is structured. Three-panel layout, material-first workflow, AI-assisted design generation, and full tablet and mobile support. The first laser marking tool built to the same interaction standards as the design software operators already use in the rest of their work.
Average task completion (vs 9.2 min in EZ CAD)
3.8 min
Ease of use score (vs 4.2 for EZ CAD)
8.7 / 10
Prototype tasks completed without assistance
11 / 12
