The UI Friction Point: Why Your Legacy Interface is a Security Liability

Every time an employee copies data from a 30-year-old mainframe terminal into a private Google Sheet to "make it work," your enterprise security perimeter dissolves. This isn't just a productivity issue; it’s a systemic failure of the user interface. When the UI fails to meet the speed of business, the shadow risks employees build begin to proliferate across your organization, creating a fragmented ecosystem of unauthorized macros, external scripts, and unsanctioned SaaS workarounds.

Legacy systems are often the backbone of Financial Services, Healthcare, and Government sectors. Yet, these systems are frequently trapped in a cycle of neglect. Because a full manual rewrite takes an average of 18 months—and 70% of legacy rewrites fail or exceed their timeline—IT departments often kick the can down the road. In that vacuum, employees innovate in ways that bypass security protocols.

TL;DR: Legacy UI friction forces employees to create unauthorized workarounds (Shadow IT), leading to massive security and compliance risks. Manual modernization is too slow (40 hours per screen), but Replay uses Visual Reverse Engineering to modernize these UIs into React components in a fraction of the time, reducing modernization timelines from years to weeks.

The Anatomy of Shadow IT in Legacy Environments#

The shadow risks employees build are rarely born out of malice. They are a response to "UI Friction"—the gap between what a legacy application provides and what a modern workflow requires. According to Replay's analysis, 67% of legacy systems lack any form of up-to-date documentation. When a user can't find a button or has to click through 15 screens to complete a 3-step process, they build a workaround.

These workarounds often take the form of:

1. •Personal Spreadsheets: Moving sensitive data into unencrypted Excel files for "better sorting."
2. •Browser Extensions: Using third-party "automation" tools that scrape the DOM of internal apps.
3. •Intermediate Databases: Creating "side" databases to store information that the main system makes too difficult to access.

This creates a $3.6 trillion global technical debt problem. The longer these workarounds exist, the harder it becomes to migrate to a unified, modern architecture.

Visual Reverse Engineering is the process of recording real user workflows and automatically converting those visual interactions into documented React code, Design Systems, and Component Libraries. This allows enterprises to bridge the gap before the shadow risks employees build become permanent fixtures in the tech stack.

The High Cost of Manual UI Modernization#

Industry experts recommend that modernization should happen incrementally, but the manual approach is prohibitively expensive. In a standard enterprise environment, it takes approximately 40 hours of engineering and design time to manually document, design, and code a single complex legacy screen into a modern framework.

Comparison: Manual vs. Replay Modernization#

By using Replay, organizations realize a 70% average time saving. Instead of spending 18 months on a rewrite that has a high probability of failure, teams can use Replay’s Flows feature to record the actual paths users take—including those unauthorized workarounds—and bake that functionality directly into a secure, governed React application.

Identifying the Shadow Risks Employees Build#

To mitigate the shadow risks employees build, architects must first identify where the legacy UI is failing. This usually occurs at "data silos" or "workflow bottlenecks."

For example, a claims adjuster in an insurance firm might find the legacy UI too slow for data entry. They might build a local Python script to "auto-fill" fields. While efficient, this script is undocumented, unmanaged, and potentially vulnerable to injection attacks.

Implementing a Modern Component Architecture#

When you use Replay to capture these workflows, the platform generates a structured Design System that replaces the need for these "shadow" tools. Below is an example of how a legacy data table—the primary culprit for shadow workarounds—is transformed into a modern, typed React component using Replay’s output.

typescript
// Replay Generated: Modern Claims Table Component
import React, { useState } from 'react';
import { Table, Badge, Button } from '@/components/ui';
import { useClaimsData } from '@/hooks/useClaims';

interface ClaimRecord {
  id: string;
  status: 'pending' | 'approved' | 'rejected';
  amount: number;
  lastUpdated: string;
}

export const ModernizedClaimsUI: React.FC = () => {
  const { data, loading, error } = useClaimsData();
  const [selectedRows, setSelectedRows] = useState<string[]>([]);

  // Replay captured the 'Shadow Excel' requirement for bulk exports
  const handleBulkExport = () => {
    // Secure, governed export logic replaces unauthorized spreadsheets
    console.log("Exporting secure data for:", selectedRows);
  };

  return (
    <div className="p-6 bg-slate-50 rounded-xl shadow-sm">
      <div className="flex justify-between mb-4">
        <h2 className="text-2xl font-bold">Claims Management</h2>
        <Button onClick={handleBulkExport} disabled={selectedRows.length === 0}>
          Secure Export ({selectedRows.length})
        </Button>
      </div>
      <Table 
        columns={['ID', 'Status', 'Amount', 'Updated']}
        data={data}
        onRowSelect={(id) => setSelectedRows([...selectedRows, id])}
      />
    </div>
  );
};

By providing the "Export" functionality (which was previously handled by a shadow IT spreadsheet) within the official application, you eliminate the incentive for employees to create their own risky workarounds.

Why Rewrites Fail and How Visual Reverse Engineering Fixes It#

The reason 70% of legacy rewrites fail is often "Requirements Drift." Because 67% of legacy systems lack documentation, the developers building the new system don't actually know all the hidden features the old system had—features that employees rely on daily.

Replay solves this via Blueprints. A Blueprint isn't just a screenshot; it's a functional map of the legacy application's logic. By recording the recording real user workflows, Replay captures the "hidden" requirements that manual discovery misses.

The Developer's Workflow with Replay#

1. •Record: A subject matter expert (SME) records a session of them using the legacy app, including the "tricks" they use to get their job done.
2. •Analyze: Replay's AI Automation Suite parses the video to identify UI components, data structures, and state transitions.
3. •Generate: The platform produces a Component Library in React/TypeScript.
4. •Deploy: Developers refine the generated code, which is already 80% complete, and deploy it to a modern cloud environment.

This process addresses the shadow risks employees build by ensuring the new system is actually better and faster than the unauthorized workarounds.

typescript
// Replay Blueprint Output: Logic for a Legacy Multi-Step Form
// This replaces a complex, undocumented 15-screen legacy flow.

import { createFormMachine } from '@/lib/state-machines';

export const legacyWorkflowSchema = {
  id: 'insurance-onboarding',
  initial: 'user_identification',
  states: {
    user_identification: {
      on: { NEXT: 'policy_selection' }
    },
    policy_selection: {
      on: { NEXT: 'risk_assessment', PREV: 'user_identification' }
    },
    risk_assessment: {
      // Replay identified this step as a major friction point
      // where employees were previously using external calculators.
      on: { SUBMIT: 'confirmation', PREV: 'policy_selection' }
    },
    confirmation: {
      type: 'final'
    }
  }
};

Security and Compliance in Regulated Industries#

For Financial Services, Healthcare, and Government, the shadow risks employees build are not just operational hazards—they are compliance violations. A HIPAA-regulated environment cannot tolerate patient data being moved into a "shadow" Trello board for task management.

Replay is built for these high-stakes environments. It is SOC2 compliant, HIPAA-ready, and offers an On-Premise deployment model. This ensures that the process of modernizing your UI doesn't itself become a security risk. By centralizing the modernization process through Visual Reverse Engineering, you bring the "shadow" workflows back into the light of IT governance.

Bridging the Gap: From 18 Months to 18 Days#

The traditional enterprise timeline for modernization is a relic of the past. When you realize that the average screen takes 40 hours to manually rebuild, a 500-screen application becomes a multi-year nightmare. This delay is the primary reason why shadow risks employees build become so entrenched.

According to Replay's analysis, using an AI-driven automation suite can reduce the "Discovery and Documentation" phase of a project by up to 90%. Instead of interviewing users for months to find out how they use the system, you simply watch the recordings.

The Replay Advantage:

• •Library: Automatically build a Design System from your legacy UI.
• •Flows: Document the architecture of user paths.
• •Blueprints: Use an AI-assisted editor to refine your modern code.

By shrinking the modernization window, you proactively eliminate the need for Shadow IT. When the official UI is performant, intuitive, and updated weekly rather than once a decade, the shadow risks employees build naturally disappear.

Frequently Asked Questions#

What are the main causes of shadow risks employees build in legacy systems?#

The primary cause is "UI Friction." When legacy applications are slow, difficult to navigate, or lack modern features (like easy data export or bulk editing), employees create unauthorized workarounds—such as external spreadsheets or scripts—to maintain productivity. These workarounds bypass IT security and governance.

How does Visual Reverse Engineering help mitigate Shadow IT?#

Visual Reverse Engineering allows IT teams to quickly see exactly how employees are using (and bypassing) legacy systems. By recording real workflows, tools like Replay capture the "hidden" requirements that employees have built for themselves. IT can then integrate these requirements into a secure, modern React application, making the unauthorized workarounds obsolete.

Can Replay handle highly sensitive data in regulated industries?#

Yes. Replay is designed for regulated industries like Healthcare and Finance. It is SOC2 compliant and HIPAA-ready. For organizations with strict data residency requirements, Replay offers On-Premise deployment options to ensure that all recording and code generation happens within the organization's secure perimeter.

How much time can Replay save compared to manual UI rewrites?#

On average, Replay provides a 70% time saving. While a manual rewrite of a single complex screen can take 40 hours of combined design and engineering time, Replay can reduce that to approximately 4 hours. This shifts modernization timelines from 18-24 months down to just a few weeks or months.

Does Replay generate production-ready code?#

Replay generates high-quality, documented React and TypeScript code based on the visual patterns and flows of your legacy application. While developers will still perform final integration and logic refinement, Replay typically handles 80% of the "heavy lifting," including component architecture and design system mapping.

Ready to modernize without rewriting? Book a pilot with Replay