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CAKE BUILDER CMS
Project Duration
3 week
My Role
UX/UI Designer
Tools
Figma, Figma Make
Context
Designing a Scalable Cake Customization System
Cake customization started simple — a few flavors, a few sizes, a few toppings.
But as the product line expanded, the system needed to support more combinations, more rules, and more dependencies between options. What was once easy to manage became harder to structure and maintain.
This project focuses on solving that growth — by designing a CMS that keeps complexity organized instead of letting it accumulate.
The Problem
The Challenge of Structured Customization
Managing cake customization options can become difficult as the number of available choices grows. Without a structured system, administrators may struggle to maintain consistency across flavors, toppings, sizes, and customization rules.
How might we design a CMS that can manage complex product customization without breaking structure as it scales?
Research
Exploring System Behavior
I started by grounding the problem in real usage, speaking separately with retail shop owners and supplier-side staff to understand how the CMS actually performs in day-to-day work. This helped surface issues without either side adjusting their answers based on the other.
For shop owners, the same 3 problems came up in almost conversation
Unstable System Rules
Changes in one option unintentionally affected or broke related configurations.
Misaligned CMS Structure
The admin system did not reflect how the customer cake builder was structured.
Limited Support for Custom Inputs
Custom elements like shapes or special configurations were difficult to add without breaking existing setups.
Key Insights
Three patterns emerged from repeated issues
I started by grounding the problem in real usage, speaking separately with retail shop owners and supplier-side staff to understand how the CMS actually performs in day-to-day work. This helped surface issues without either side adjusting their answers based on the other.
For shop owners, the same 3 problems came up in almost conversation
Errors in CMS quickly surface in the customer experience
Small mistakes in setup like incorrect rules or mislinked options can affect the customer website, making issues highly visible and impactful for end users.
Admins constantly translate between two different systems
The CMS doesn’t match how the cake builder actually works, so admins have to mentally translate between the two while setting things up. This extra step slows them down and makes mistakes more likely.
Limited Constraints
Even simple additions like new shapes couldn’t be done independently and usually needed help from the development team. title
Creating Personas
Two personas, built from real conversation.
“I need to update things quickly, but I’m always afraid something else might break.”
Pain Points
Workarounds
Hard to understand how options and rules are connected
Double-checking changes across multiple screens
Changes in one area can affect other configurations
Testing configurations repeatedly before publishing
Adding new custom elements requires extra support or workarounds
Avoiding changes unless necessary due to risk of breaking something
" I know what I want to add, but I can’t always do it myself inside the system "
Pain Points
Workarounds
Cannot add new custom shapes or visual elements independently
Requesting developers to manually implement new shapes
Existing structure is not flexible enough for new customization needs
Delaying updates until technical support is available
Requires external support for even small structural updates
Using existing shapes as substitutes even when they don’t fully match the requirement
Sketching
Paper sketches ultimately defined the structure of the entire app.
I explored four different sketch variations, but I noticed they either became too complex or felt too much like a traditional dashboard, which wasn’t ideal for how admins actually needed to work. The final direction, however, felt the most balanced and aligned with the workflow, so I decided to move forward with it.
