Space Cowboy Design - Product & UX/UI Design

After every training session, the debrief was a guess. APEX was built to change that.

Introduction

VirTra builds law enforcement and military training simulators used by agencies across the country and around the world. VOS is their flagship product, a full-scale simulator that has been in the field for over 15 years. Every session it runs generates detailed performance data. APEX was built to make that data useful.

Company

Vialytics

Year

2024 - 2025

Platform

Desktop Application

Role

Product Design • UX/UI

Scope of work

New Product • Dashboards • Analytics • MVP Launch

The Problem

VirTra's flagship simulator, VOS, captures detailed performance data from every training session. Shots fired, hits, misses, accuracy, shot split times, all of it recorded automatically. The problem was what happened after the session ended.

Instructors had no way to review that data in any meaningful way. Export options were limited, reports were basic, and the debrief relied heavily on memory and notes taken during the session. The data existed. The tools to read it didn't.

APEX was built to close that gap. A standalone analytics platform that could take everything VOS captured and turn it into something an instructor could actually use in a debrief, and something an admin could use to track ROI, trainee improvement, and training program effectiveness over time.

Every session generated data. Nobody could do anything with it.

A large group photo of diverse team members gathered in an industrial-style space with arched ceiling.

APEX home screen in its empty state, before any training data has been synced or integrations added.

My Role

I owned the design end-to-end over six months, working directly with the CTO and Head of Development to define what APEX was before a single screen existed. That meant getting alignment on scope, user types, and what the product actually needed to do before any design work began.

The work required designing for two fundamentally different users at the same time. Instructors needed a fast, focused debrief tool. Admins needed a broader view of training program performance and ROI. Same product, same data, different jobs. The design had to serve both without compromising either.

From there it was about translating raw simulation data into something immediately readable. Every visualization and layout decision was made through a single lens, could an instructor understand this in the first few seconds of a debrief, or an admin in a quick check-in?

Two users. Two completely different jobs. One product that had to serve both.

Event list view showing training grouped by larger program or event.

Session list nested inside an event, one level deeper in the training hierarchy.

Collaborators

CTO

A new addition to VirTra at the time, and a key creative force on the project. Regular collaboration sessions shaped the product's direction and kept design decisions grounded in a clear product vision.

Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

The people who run and design training curriculum. Their understanding of how instructors actually use session data shaped what APEX needed to surface and how fast it needed to be readable.

Head of Software

Technical lead and implementation partner. Close involvement throughout ensured the design stayed buildable and that nothing was designed in isolation from the engineering reality.

Instructors

The primary end users of the session report and debrief tools. Their feedback during research defined what a useful post-session review actually looked like in practice.

CTO

Head of Software

Technical lead and implementation partner. Close involvement throughout ensured the design stayed buildable and that nothing was designed in isolation from the engineering reality.

Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

The people who run and design training curriculum. Their understanding of how instructors actually use session data shaped what APEX needed to surface and how fast it needed to be readable.

Instructors

The primary end users of the session report and debrief tools. Their feedback during research defined what a useful post-session review actually looked like in practice.

APEX was a focused team working on an undefined problem. Getting it right meant staying close to the people who understood the data, the technology, and the training environment it was built to serve.

Approach

Principles first

Good design doesn't start with screens. It starts with understanding the problem well enough that the right solution becomes obvious.

Order from Chaos — Two user types. Completely different needs. One product.

Before any screens were designed, the first job was mapping exactly what each user needed from the same set of data. Instructors needed fast, focused debrief tools. Admins needed program-level performance and ROI visibility. Getting that clarity upfront meant every design decision that followed had a clear reason behind it.

No Wasted Pixels — A session report can show everything. The design decision was what to show first.

Training data is dense. The temptation is to surface everything at once. Instead the report was designed around a clear hierarchy, session-wide stats at the top, individual trainee performance one level deeper. The right information at the right moment, nothing competing for attention that shouldn't be there.

Built to Last — Designed with customization in mind before customization was built.

The dashboard was scoped for v1 without customization, but the foundation was designed to support it. Different users need different information at a glance. Building that flexibility into the architecture from the start meant the product wouldn't need to be rebuilt when the time came to add it.

Earned Trust — Data only works if users trust what they're reading.

A data-heavy interface can impress or it can inform. The goal was always the latter. Every visualization choice, the Skills Web, the Speed vs Accuracy chart, the leaderboard, was made to be immediately readable by an instructor mid-debrief, not to look sophisticated on a screen.