The Loop Design System started as a Design System used by just the EE brand. As part of the restructuring of The BT Group, the Design System evolved from the single brand version to one which handled all brands in The BT Group (BT, EE and Plusnet). This mammoth task involved the introduction of Design Tokens to the Design System, aligning the design decisions across all brands so they used a shared language.

The multi-brand Design System made it easy to create experiences for multiple brands, and switch between brands or Light and Dark mode changed from a manual process to being handled automatically through modes. This decreased the time it took for Product Designers to create designs, and increased the accuracy of the final products.

When I started the role, the existing Design System was more of a Component Library, with little documentation, and overly complex Components due to the Figma Design System being contributed to by the whole team. There was also a distinct lack of parity between Figma and Code, as Designers had the freedom to create what they wanted, and squads didn't focus on maintaining Storybook.

Using the lack of parity, difficulty maintaining a poorly built Component Library, and data from timed tests between the existing Design System and a test version, I successfully built a business case for a dedicating the majority of my time to building a new Design System in Figma from scratch, setting up a dedicated squad to build it with Figma and Code parity at the heart, and establishing a company-wide focus on creating consistent experiences as a result.

Component variants were simplified vastly, from overly complex assets which were created before Figma introduced certain features, to streamlined Components which still offered all the customisation that the V1 versions had. This resulted in a fraction of the physical variants being needed, through efficient usage of variables, booleans, slots and other properties.

This role spanned multiple departments, including Brand, Engineering, Content, UX Design and UX Research.

A major part of my role, as the team's UI authority, was providing regular up-skilling sessions with the UX Team, as well as providing regular updates on the progress of the new Design System, rationale behind decisions being made, and gathering feedback from Designers on what could be improved. The up-skilling sessions enabled the users of the Design System to fully understand how to use Figma effectively, increasing their familiarity with features like auto-layout, booleans, variables and prototyping.

I was the first adopter of Figma Make at the company, and after exploring it's capabilities, ran multiple sessions with the UX Team to help them get to the stage where it became the primary way that prototypes were created, reducing the amount of time it took to create them and making them more interactive as a result.

The numerous presentations I gave to not just the UX Team but also executives and other stakeholders kept them informed during the creation period of the new Design System, and allowed me to keep everyone aware of upcoming changes well in advance, as well as the rationale behind any changes.

When I started, there was an obvious inefficiency in the design process, which made it difficult to create designs with speed across the Boohoo Group brands. As there was also a poorly maintained code library too, there were often vast differences between what was designed, and what actually went live. Designers would create using vague guidelines, rarely use existing Components and Patterns, and create bespoke assets for every new project.

As part of my role, I established a white-label Design System which became the basis for how designs were handled across the 13 brands under the Boohoo Group. The efficiency gains at the Product Design level, and the resulting consistency between Design and Code were immediately apparent, and allowed us to release consistent updates at speed, which was a key driver for growth in the ever-changing world of fast fashion.

In the world of fast fashion, social proofing is a key driver for purchases. Alongside the addition of other forms of social proof such as remaining items tags, reviews on products can have a massive influence on whether customers buy an item.

Rating & Reviews had been an addition which the board had been considering for a while, as they were unsure about the value it would add to the platform. Working alongside the Research Department, and refining potential approaches through prototypes, we eventually obtained approval to trial it on the Boohoo site as a proof of concept.

The feature received positive feedback, and customers valued the data we provided on average fit, quality, and text-based reviews which enabled them to make informed decisions on whether to purchase an item. The added touchpoint of email reminders to leave a review 7 days after purchase also had an unintended effect of increasing repeat traffic to the site.

Alongside the addition of Ratings & Reviews, another major project aimed at increasing the information available to customers to help them to make informed purchases was the addition of an updated Size Guide. The previous version featured no visuals and general data which customers found inaccurate, and resulted in high levels of returns as customers resorted to ordering multiple sizes of an item and returning the ones which didn't fit.

By working closely with the Merchandising Department, the updated Size Guide I created featured accurate data on item sizing, specific to multiple types of product. It also featured visuals and instructions on how customers should measure their proportions to help them purchase items which fit. This resulted in a reduction in returns and less occurrences of multiple item sizes of the same product being purchased as customers had more confidence that what they were buying would be the right fit.