Enterprise UX Standardization: Consolidating 5 Legacy Systems into 1 React Library

The average enterprise claims processor toggles between five and nine different applications to complete a single customer request. One system is a green-screen terminal emulator; another is a Java Swing app wrapped in a browser; the third is a jQuery-heavy portal from 2012. This fragmentation isn’t just an eyesore—it’s a massive drain on operational efficiency and a primary driver of the $3.6 trillion global technical debt.

When a Fortune 500 financial services firm attempts enterprise standardization consolidating legacy systems, they usually hit a wall. The traditional approach—manual audits, months of requirements gathering, and "clean sheet" redesigns—results in a 70% failure rate. Most projects exceed their 18-month average timeline before the first component library is even published.

At Replay, we’ve pioneered a different path: Visual Reverse Engineering. Instead of guessing how legacy systems work or digging through non-existent documentation, we record the systems in action and transform those recordings into documented React components.

TL;DR:

• •The Problem: 67% of legacy systems lack documentation, making manual consolidation nearly impossible.
• •The Cost: Manual modernization takes ~40 hours per screen; enterprise rewrites typically take 18-24 months.
• •The Solution: Replay uses Visual Reverse Engineering to convert video recordings of legacy UIs into a standardized React library.
• •The Result: 70% time savings, reducing screen-to-code time from 40 hours to 4 hours, and consolidating multiple legacy tech stacks into a single, SOC2-compliant Design System.

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The Fragmentation Tax: Why Consolidation is Non-Negotiable#

Every legacy system represents a different era of design thinking and technical constraints. When you have five systems, you have five different ways to "Submit a Form," five different table implementations, and five different validation patterns. This lack of enterprise standardization consolidating legacy assets creates a "Fragmentation Tax" that manifests in three ways:

1. •Training Overhead: New hires take months to learn the quirks of five disparate interfaces.
2. •Maintenance Bloat: Security patches must be applied across multiple stacks (AngularJS, jQuery, JSP, etc.).
3. •Inconsistent Data: Different UI logic leads to data being entered or validated inconsistently at the source.

According to Replay’s analysis, the average enterprise spends 30% of its developer resources just maintaining the "glue" between these legacy interfaces.

Video-to-code is the process of capturing user interactions with these legacy systems via screen recording and using AI-driven visual analysis to generate functional, styled React components that mirror the original utility but utilize modern architecture.

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The Strategy for Enterprise Standardization Consolidating Legacy Workflows#

Consolidating five systems into one React library isn't just about CSS; it's about logic extraction. Industry experts recommend a "Capture-Extract-Standardize" workflow.

1. Capture: The End of Manual Audits#

Manual audits are where modernization goes to die. Because 67% of legacy systems lack documentation, architects usually spend months interviewing users. With Replay, you simply record a user performing a standard workflow. The platform captures the DOM state, the visual styles, and the interaction patterns.

2. Extract: Identifying the "Global" Component#

When you record five different systems, you'll find that "System A" calls a primary action button

while "System B" uses . Replay’s AI Automation Suite identifies these as the same functional primitive.

3. Standardize: Building the React Library#

Once patterns are identified, they are pushed into the Replay Library (Design System). This becomes your "Single Source of Truth." Instead of five different tables, you have one

component that handles the edge cases of all five legacy systems.

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Comparison: Manual Consolidation vs. Replay Visual Reverse Engineering#

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Technical Implementation: From Legacy Spaghetti to Clean React#

To understand the power of enterprise standardization consolidating legacy codebases, let's look at a typical transformation.

Legacy Fragment (System 1: jQuery/PHP)#

In an old insurance portal, a "Policy Card" might look like this mess of inline styles and global classes:

html
<!-- Legacy System 1: Inconsistent and hard to maintain -->
<div class="card-container-v2" style="padding: 20px; border: 1px solid #ccc;">
  <span class="policy-hdr" style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold;">Policy #88392</span>
  <div class="status-active">Active</div>
  <button onclick="validateAndSubmit()" id="submit-btn-old">Renew Now</button>
</div>

Standardized React Component (Generated via Replay)#

After recording this workflow across all five systems, Replay generates a standardized, type-safe React component that adheres to your new Design System.

typescript
import React from 'react';
import { Button, Card, Badge, Typography } from '@enterprise/design-system';

interface PolicyCardProps {
  policyNumber: string;
  status: 'active' | 'expired' | 'pending';
  onRenew: () => void;
}

/**
 * Standardized PolicyCard component
 * Consistently replaces legacy implementations from System 1-5
 */
export const PolicyCard: React.FC<PolicyCardProps> = ({ 
  policyNumber, 
  status, 
  onRenew 
}) => {
  return (
    <Card padding="lg" shadow="sm">
      <Typography variant="h3">Policy #{policyNumber}</Typography>
      <Badge variant={status === 'active' ? 'success' : 'warning'}>
        {status.toUpperCase()}
      </Badge>
      <Button 
        intent="primary" 
        onClick={onRenew}
        className="mt-4"
      >
        Renew Now
      </Button>
    </Card>
  );
};

This transition ensures that while the backend might still be the same legacy API, the frontend is a unified, high-performance React application. For more on this, see our guide on Legacy Modernization Strategies.

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Managing the Architectural Shift with Replay Flows#

Consolidating UIs is only half the battle. You must also consolidate the flows. If System 1 requires a 3-step verification and System 2 requires 5 steps, your new React library needs to accommodate both or—ideally—standardize them into a single optimized path.

The Replay Flows (Architecture) feature allows architects to visualize the "as-is" state of all five systems side-by-side. By mapping these visual recordings, you can identify redundant steps that can be eliminated during the enterprise standardization consolidating legacy process.

Industry experts recommend focusing on "Atomic Consolidation" first:

1. •Level 1: Atoms (Buttons, Inputs, Typography)
2. •Level 2: Molecules (Form Groups, Search Bars)
3. •Level 3: Organisms (Navigation Headers, Data Grids)
4. •Level 4: Templates (Dashboard Layouts, Workflow Screens)

By building from the bottom up using Replay, you ensure that by the time you reach Level 4, 90% of your code is already tested and standardized.

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Security and Compliance in Regulated Industries#

For Financial Services, Healthcare, and Government sectors, "standardization" is often a code word for "security audit." You cannot simply copy-paste legacy code into a new React app.

Replay is built for these environments. With SOC2 compliance and HIPAA-ready protocols, the platform ensures that sensitive data captured during the recording phase is redacted or handled within an on-premise environment. This allows teams to achieve enterprise standardization consolidating legacy systems without risking data exposure.

The "Blueprints" Advantage#

Once a component is generated, the Replay Blueprints (Editor) allows developers to fine-tune the output. You can inject accessibility (A11y) standards that were missing in the original legacy systems—such as ARIA labels and keyboard navigation—ensuring your new consolidated library is more compliant than the systems it replaces.

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Overcoming the "Documentation Gap"#

The biggest hurdle in any consolidation project is the "missing developer." The person who wrote the original COBOL or Delphi interface retired in 2012.

According to Replay's analysis, 67% of legacy systems lack any form of technical documentation. This forces modern developers to "archaeologically" dig through code. Visual Reverse Engineering bypasses this. By observing the behavior of the UI, Replay reconstructs the intent.

typescript
// Example of Replay-generated logic for a complex legacy validation
// This logic was "hidden" in a 2,000-line jQuery file but extracted via interaction analysis

export const useLegacyValidation = (inputValue: string) => {
  const [isValid, setIsValid] = React.useState(true);

  React.useEffect(() => {
    // Replay identified this pattern from System 3's "Premium Calculation" workflow
    const logic = () => {
      if (inputValue.startsWith('PX') && inputValue.length === 10) {
        return true;
      }
      return false;
    };
    setIsValid(logic());
  }, [inputValue]);

  return isValid;
};

By extracting this logic into React Hooks, you can maintain the business rules of the legacy system while discarding the technical debt of the old framework. Learn more about Automating Design Systems to see how this scales.

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Conclusion: The Path to a Single React Library#

Consolidating five legacy systems into a single React library is no longer an 18-month "moonshot" project. By leveraging Visual Reverse Engineering, enterprises can cut the modernization timeline by 70%, moving from months of manual coding to weeks of automated generation.

The goal of enterprise standardization consolidating legacy stacks is to create a future-proof foundation. When you use Replay, you aren't just building a UI; you are creating a living, documented Design System that serves as the bridge between your legacy past and your digital future.

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Frequently Asked Questions#

How does Replay handle legacy systems with no source code available?#

Replay utilizes Visual Reverse Engineering, which means it analyzes the rendered UI and DOM behavior rather than the underlying server-side source code. By recording user workflows, Replay can reconstruct the frontend components and logic regardless of whether the original source code is accessible or documented.

Can we use Replay for on-premise legacy systems in highly regulated industries?#

Yes. Replay is designed for regulated environments including Financial Services, Healthcare, and Government. We offer On-Premise deployment options and are SOC2 and HIPAA-ready, ensuring that all visual recording and code generation happens within your secure perimeter.

Does the generated React code follow modern best practices?#

Absolutely. Replay doesn't just "scrape" HTML; it generates clean, modular, and type-safe TypeScript/React code. The components follow atomic design principles and are easily integrated into modern CI/CD pipelines. You can further customize these outputs using the Replay Blueprints editor to match your specific coding standards.

What is the typical ROI for an enterprise standardization project using Replay?#

Most enterprises see a 70% reduction in modernization time. Specifically, manual screen conversion drops from an average of 40 hours per screen to just 4 hours. For a project involving 100 screens across 5 systems, this represents a saving of over 3,600 developer hours.

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Ready to modernize without rewriting? Book a pilot with Replay