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Self-Serve Customer Portal

I led the UX strategy and design to address a fragmented, support-heavy customer experience, scaling the team and embedding governance to deliver a unified self-service platform that automated key processes, reduced support demand, and positioned UX as a strategic partner.

6

Functions

Cross-Collaboration

6

Squads

Federated Development

8

Designers

Team Growth

50%

Reduction

FTE Support Teams (Projected)

Customer portal design across desktop, tablet and mobile

SaaS

Self-Service

B2B

Technical System

Leadership

Hands-on

Systems Thinking

Scalable Design Practices

UX Research

UX Vision

UX Strategy

UX Design

Accessibility

Design System

Governance

UCD Process Implementation

Stakeholder influence

Context & Challenge

Role: UX Design Manager & Design Lead


Scope: UX strategy, leadership, design and delivery for customer-facing platform and design system adoption.

The Problem

  • Disconnected tools, manual workflows with high support costs.
  • Lack of a unified UX vision or governance
  • Customers navigated multiple inconsistent sites, struggling to complete routine tasks independently.
  • Overly complex interactions forced heavy reliance on support, reducing satisfaction and confidence in the platform.

Why it mattered

  • The fragmented ecosystem was undermining customer trust and operational efficiency, driving costs and support volumes up.
  • Lack of scalability limited the company’s ability to onboard and retain enterprise clients effectively.
  • High Customer Support calls prevented business growth.
  • Addressing this gap was essential to enable automation, reduce support demand, and position the organisation for future growth with a more sustainable, customer-centred model.

Approach

1

Set vision & influence stakeholders: Defined a unified UX strategy, facilitated alignment workshops across Product, Engineering, Architecture, and secured senior sponsorship.

2

Shape discovery & foundations: Directed research and design sprints, introduced customer testing, and codified design principles to guide decisions.

3

Scale team & governance: Started on my own, and progressively grew a team of 8 designers, established agile design ops, and embedded governance through critiques, reviews, and accessibility compliance.

4

Deliver & anchor impact: Oversaw design of core platform features and integration with the new design system, while positioning UX as a strategic partner in roadmap planning and cross-functional governance.

Process

Discovery

  • Conducted user research to identify pain points in the fragmented customer experience
  • Identify personas that reflect the needs and compliance requirements of enterprise clients.
  • Conduct an Information Architecture study that included a card sort and tree test to understand the hierarchy and mental models surrounding the organisation of information and labelling.
  • Mapped customer journeys to understand support dependencies and manual workflow impact

What We Learn

2 Key User Groups, with very different needs and permission levels, shaped the overall experience.

Card sorting exercise results in bar charts showing a much better understanding of current application of technical and internal participants

Ideation

  • Facilitated cross-functional workshops to align vision across Product, Engineering and Legal teams

  • Facilitated a design sprint to define the MVP scope, map key customer journeys, and establish the foundational interaction model.

  • Created prototypes and design principles (Champion Simplicity, Empower the User, Design to Scale) to guide decisions and test core flows with target personas.

Outcomes

  • Stakeholder alignment on UX vision & Design Principles
  • Definition of key concepts for testing with Customers
  • Established stakeholder engagement model

Our Focus

1 Critical Challenge: enabling users to navigate highly technical processes without overwhelming them cognitively

Key Concepts for Testing

User Testing

Carried out usability testing with enterprise customers, capturing insights that shaped iteration cycles and validated the MVP’s ability to reduce complexity and support self-service

Methodology

  • 16 Participants: Customer & Staff
  • 2 Weeks of Interview
  • 2 Studies

Design

  • Consolidated multiple disconnected sites into a single, unified customer platform by introducing a platform-wide masthead.
  • Combined automation with step-by-step workflows that guide the customer through the task.
  • Introduced consistent interaction patterns and accessibility standards through the new design system.
  • Enabled scalable, data-driven experiences through progressive disclosure and permission-based interaction patterns.

How We Got There

Customer Self-Service was the outcome of the experience, Automation & Guidance were the vehicles to make it possible

MVP Final Designs

Design to Scale

  • Embedded designers into product teams using an agile design ops model.
  • Led the design of the platform features, stepping in hands-on when required to guide direction and ensure quality.
  • Integrated and scaled the new design system, ensuring consistency across products and AA WCAG compliance built in.

This work later evolved into a broader Design Operations programme → Designing at Scale

Design System

UX/UI Guidelines

In- Built Accessibility

Pattern Documentation

Design Blueprints

Design Reviews

Asynchronous Feedback

Stakeholders Show & Tell

Design Ops

Agile Rituals

UX Governance

Blueprint - Inventory Page
Inventory Page Template
UX Pattern guideline

Outomes

  • Launched a foundational customer portal enabling scalable self-service interactions.
  • Reduced reliance on support calls through automation and simplification.
  • Increased stakeholder alignment and visibility of UX in governance.
  • Embedded UX into roadmap planning and prioritisation processes.
  • Elevated perception of design from executional to strategic partner in a compliance-driven environment.

Reflections

Leading this programme was both a challenge and a privilege — an experience that expanded my leadership and taught me lessons I carry forward. A few stand out as particularly important:

  • Collaboration, communication, and visibility proved critical to success.
    Establishing the right cadence with both the team and senior stakeholders ensured alignment and built trust at every stage of delivery.

  • Building the design system was the foundational investment that, although initially slowing us down, ultimately became the accelerator for scaling the platform.
    It provided the structure for governance, enabled faster decision-making, and gave us the leverage to hold constructive yet firm conversations with Product and Engineering, ensuring the experience was accessible, consistent, and truly usable.

If I were to do it again…

I would establish stronger governance and stakeholder communication rituals earlier in the process.