“The launcher is a missile pod on a rotating pedestal, mounted on an APC. The operator is up to ten kilometers away, holding a ruggedized tablet. Between them, the system had to make picking targets, queuing them, and authorizing a multi-strike feel like one continuous gesture, three clicks from receiving a target to missile impact, in under twelve seconds.”
Kidon is a remote-controlled missile launcher. The hardware is a multi-missile pod on a rotating pedestal, typically mounted on an APC or another armored vehicle. The operator works on a ruggedized military tablet, up to ten kilometers from the launcher itself. They pick targets from a map (either pinning new locations from field reports or approving target injections from forward observers), select how many missiles to fire and at which targets, then authorize. The pedestal rotates toward target one, fires, rotates toward target two, fires, and so on, with no further input. As Project Manager and UX Lead I owned the design end to end and synchronized four disciplines: UX, UI, industrial design, and Unity programming.
How the system came together.
Rapid design thinking workshop
The project started with a one-day workshop. Every working department was in the room: UX, industrial design, programming. An operational SME led the session, laid out the system requirements, and answered the questions only an operator could answer. The workshop ended with several working concepts, captured on paper, ready for elaboration.
Information architecture
With the chosen direction, I mapped the full information architecture of the system: every screen, every state, every transition between target acquisition and launch authorization. The IA had to absorb edge cases the operators raised on the fly, without breaking the promise that the operator (sitting kilometers away from the actual launcher) could trust the system to do the right thing.
From UX into UI
One concept was selected after consultation with the client and SME, then elaborated into full user flows. From there I worked alongside the UI designer to layer visual design over the UX. The interface is desktop-class but runs on a ruggedized military tablet, so every touch target had to account for gloved hands, direct sunlight, and night operations on the same screen. The first UI pass failed the sunlight test immediately - contrast ratios that worked in a dark room were unreadable at noon on an APC. We rebuilt the contrast system with direct sunlight as the baseline, not the exception.
From the office to the field
Early in the project the team had specced bespoke military hardware to handle the launcher's positioning and orientation, expensive, slow to mount, slow to calibrate. In one of the workshops, someone pointed out that any soldier on the team already carries a smartphone with a built-in compass and GPS that does the job. The team adopted the idea immediately. The deeper change was cultural: people stopped designing from the office and started designing from the field. As Project Manager I synchronized UX, UI, industrial design, and Unity programming, and weekly reviews kept the four tracks moving in step.
What we shipped.
The final interface: a map-based workspace on a ruggedized military tablet. The left panel holds the target list and queue. The map shows the launcher's current orientation and the strike path. A single authorization step hands control to the pedestal - it rotates, fires, rotates, fires, with no further input. Touch targets sized for gloved hands. Contrast ratios tested for direct sunlight at noon and complete darkness on the same screen. The three-click sequence from target acquisition to launch is embedded in the interaction model, not bolted on.
What it changed.
Three clicks. Under twelve seconds. The product managers called it the game changer, and they were right. The speed itself was the headline, but the deeper unlock was cultural: using a phone's compass and GPS instead of bespoke military components was not a clever shortcut, it was proof that the team had stopped designing from the office and started designing from the field. Once that switch flipped, every other decision got simpler.
Cytotech
Cyber Offense Made Operable