Designed and built a scalable growth platform from the ground up, enabling accelerators and leadership teams to navigate and scale their businesses more effectively.
Lead UX/UI Product Designer
ScaleUp Global
6 month contract
Founder, 3 Engineers, 1 Designer
Accelerators and scale-up teams lacked a centralised platform to manage growth, access relevant resources, and connect with the right networks. As a startup, ScaleUp Global needed a platform built from the ground up to support rapid growth and adoption.
Led end-to-end UX/UI design in a startup environment, shaping the platform from concept through to delivery. Defined structure, user journeys, and interface design, working closely with founders and engineers to create a scalable, intuitive product.
Design a scalable growth platform that enables accelerators and leadership teams to easily onboard, build profiles, discover relevant resources, and navigate complex scaling journeys through a simple, intuitive experience.
Adopted by 340+ accelerators globally, supporting 100,000+ leadership teams. UX improvements drove 600%+ growth in signups, with 80%+ of users completing signup on their first visit and 99% completing their full profile.
Research and initial direction were provided by the founder, based on knowledge of accelerators and scale-up teams. The focus shifted to simplifying entry points, reducing friction in early journeys, and enabling users to quickly access relevant content and opportunities. Key challenges are outlined below.
Users needed a simple, guided onboarding experience. Designs focused on reducing friction and enabling fast first-time use.
Profile creation was critical to unlocking value. Designs prioritised clarity, structure, and progressive completion.
Users needed to quickly discover relevant resources. Designs focused on intuitive navigation and personalised content.
Growth journeys are complex, but the experience shouldn’t feel it. Designs balanced simplicity with the depth needed to scale.
Accelerators and leadership teams within scaling businesses, ranging from founders to operational leads, all needing to navigate growth, access relevant resources, and connect with the right networks efficiently.
Solution: Defined a clear product structure and scalable foundations from the outset, enabling rapid iteration and future growth
Solution: Simplified entry points and introduced guided, step-by-step flows to improve first-time user completion
Solution: Designed intuitive navigation and progressive content to make complex pathways feel simple and manageable
Solution: Created flexible layouts and reusable patterns to support dynamic content and platform expansion
A product-led approach from concept through to delivery
Refined key user journeys throughout the design process in collaboration with the founder and engineering team, focusing on reducing friction and improving clarity.
Validated key user flows through prototypes and internal feedback, focusing on onboarding, profile creation, and content discovery.
Refined navigation, simplified onboarding and profile flows, and improved content structure to reduce friction and make the platform easier to understand and use.
Evolved from early, feature-heavy concepts to a more focused, streamlined experience that prioritised core user actions and progressive onboarding.
Critical design choices that shaped the final product
Designed a guided, step-by-step onboarding experience to reduce friction and help users quickly understand the platform.
Early journeys needed to be fast and clear. Simplifying onboarding improved first-time user completion and reduced drop-off.
Introduced a clear, progressive profile flow to help users build complete profiles and unlock relevant opportunities.
Profile completion was key to platform value. A structured approach improved clarity and encouraged users to complete required information.
Designed intuitive navigation and dynamic content to surface relevant resources, connections, and opportunities.
Users needed quick access to relevant content. Improving discoverability reduced friction and supported ongoing engagement.
Created a clean, focused interface supported by reusable patterns to manage complex growth journeys without overwhelming users.
The platform needed to scale while remaining easy to use. Prioritising clarity ensured users could navigate complexity without friction.
Built a scalable product experience focused on simplifying complex growth journeys, combining strong visual design with consistent interaction patterns across onboarding, profile creation, and content discovery.
Designed reusable components and patterns across onboarding, profiles, and content, ensuring a consistent and scalable user experience as the platform grew.
Applied strong visual design principles to improve hierarchy, readability, and focus, helping users quickly understand key actions and navigate the platform with ease.
Applied accessibility best practices to ensure the platform was usable and inclusive, supporting a wide range of users and use cases.
Worked closely with the developent team to ensure designs translated effectively into build-ready, scalable solutions.
Designed with development in mind to ensure smooth handoff and efficient implementatio
Considered scalability and performance to support a growing user base and dynamic content
Created responsive layouts that work seamlessly across devices
Defined component behaviours and edge cases to ensure consistent implementation
Driven by streamlined onboarding flows and a simplified user journey
Platform rolled out across international scale-up ecosystems within 2 years
Highly optimised onboarding reduced friction and increased conversion
Clear, guided profile flows encouraged users to fully engage with the platform
Simplifying onboarding and first-touch experiences is key to helping users quickly understand value and start engaging.
Layering information allows users to start simple while supporting more complex journeys as they explore the platform.
Breaking down profile creation into guided steps increases completion rates and overall engagement.
Making resources and opportunities easy to find ensures users can quickly access relevant value without feeling overwhelmed.
Adjusting colour contrast and visual hierarchy ensures the platform remains readable, usable, and inclusive across all user types.
"At ScaleUp Global, she built our platform from the ground up. From mapping complex user journeys to executing pixel-perfect interfaces, she quite literally nailed it. Her streamlined signup flows, beautifully simple profile experience, and intelligently designed dynamic content increased signups by over 600% beyond forecast. The platform is so clean and easy to use that customer support enquiries have been the lowest we’ve ever seen with no UX related issues to date."
- Founder, ScaleUp Global
I'm currently open to UX/UI and product design opportunities. If you're building something or hiring, I'd love to hear from you.