Industry
Product Designer (UX/UI)
Company
Stealth mode startup in early stage
Stealth sports tech platform
Product Design under NDA
Designing scalable UX patterns for a data-driven product in an early-stage environment.
Challenge
As the sole UX designer, I helped transform an early concept into a structured, scalable product by defining core user journeys, interaction models, and a unified UX foundation to support future growth.
Context
The startup was building a platform for professional users working with complex data and time-sensitive decisions. Early development prioritised feature experimentation, but lacked an overarching UX structure, resulting in friction and inconsistency.
Early-stage product with evolving requirements
High information density and expert users
No existing design system or end-to-end flows
My approach
From blank canvas to a coherent product system
01 - Discovery
Shadowing scouts
Interviews and observation sessions to understand real workflows, mental models, and decision-making under pressure.
02 - Define
Collaborative workshops
Joint sessions with product and engineering to map what the platform needed to do — and agree on what to prioritise first.
03 - Design
Building IA from scratch
Designing a flexible information architecture that could hold new features and flows without losing coherence.
04 - Connect
Bridging offline & digital
Translating a workflow that was almost entirely offline into a connected digital product that matched how scouts actually think and move.
Key constrains
Designing for a product that didn’t fully exist yet
The platform was still being defined, with features evolving rapidly and limited validation. This required designing flexible UX solutions that could adapt as the product matured.Fragmented user experience
Early versions of the product lacked a coherent journey, resulting in disconnected screens and unclear navigation.Balancing speed and structure
The team needed to move fast, while still building a system that wouldn’t collapse as complexity increased.
Outcome
Over nine months, I built the UX foundation from scratch, giving the product a coherent identity for the first time. A platform that had started as disconnected screens became a unified system, directly supporting the team's first client signing and initial market validation.
If I did it again
I would set clearer design principles from day one. Without a shared set of guiding values — around consistency, hierarchy, or how we handle complexity — early decisions can pull in different directions. Establishing those principles early would have created a stronger foundation for every conversation about what to build and why.
