UX is not hiring a product designer
It's about installing the culture

Transformed BlueSG from having virtually no UX process [Absent Stage] to a company with comprehensive & effective UX practice[Integrated Stage]

OUTCOME

Increased the BlueSG rental conversion by 22%
Reduce the development cost by 25%

Organization’s desire and ability to successfully deliver User-centered Design - NN/g
The 6 Stages of UX Maturity
  1. Absent: UX is ignored or nonexistent.
  2. Limited: UX work is rare, done haphazardly, and lacking importance.
  3. Emergent: The UX work is functional and promising but done inconsistently and inefficiently.
  4. Structured: The organization has semisystematic UX-related methodology that is widespread, but with varying degrees of effectiveness and efficiency.
  5. Integrated: UX work is comprehensive, effective, and pervasive.
  6. User-driven: Dedication to UX at all levels leads to deep insights and exceptional user-centered–design outcomes.
In late 2023 when I joined
BlueSG Organisation lacked of UX process, which led to several challenges
Organisation structure CTO/CPO -> Head of Product -> Design team
Negative user experience resulted in poor reviews and reduced customer retention.
Problematic User Experience
  • confusing navigation & interfaces
  • Inconsistent design
  • Accessibility issues
Inefficient development process
  • Developer driven design
  • No user feedback loop
  • Siloed teams
Flawed business decisions
  • Feature overload
  • High abandonment rate
  • Reputation damage
Key Findings:
80% of feature requests lacked user validation, and 35% of development time was spent fixing avoidable issues.
Strategic Approach
Comprehensive audit across four UX maturity pillars using NN/g framework
FactorChallengesDiagnostic Tools
StrategyNo UX alignment with business goalsStakeholder interviews, 1-1 sessions
CultureLeadership viewed UX as "cosmetic"cross-departmental workshops
ProcessNo user research; features driven by developer convenienceProcess mapping, backlog analysis
Outcomes0% of KPIs tracked UX metricsAnalytics audit, customer support ticket review
From Stage 1 Absent to Stage 2 Limited
Identified the key problems
Conduct early stage workshop with stakeholders to identify quick wins
  • Overwhelming customer center calls led to not being answered or increased the customer waiting time.
  • User churn rate is all time high [Based on data team analysis]
Approach
  • Conduct churn user survey and Face to face interview
  • Based on existing data applied the Double Diamond Design process to propose a solution to increase the customer center efficiency.
  • 1-1 interview with stakeholders & management to identify the stakeholder personas
Outcome
  • Churn user research synthesis, personas, hypothesis & success metrcs, guided management to focus on creating more value through user experience.
  • Implemented in app chatbot/live chat with FAQ pages and introduce new service design for customer center.
  • Allocated budget to conduct a market research to identify the market cap and main user personas.
Impact
Chatbot & FAQ reduce the customer center human interaction by 45%.
Live chat ticket resolution within 6 min reduce the number of calls by 70%
From Stage 2 Limited to Stage 3 Emergent
Approach
Post-mortem analysis for management on the Double Diamond process, which applied the previous success initiative.
  • Showing the value of follow the design process
  • Clear articulation on value o cross-team collaboration within the different stages in design process
  • Value of iterative/continues improvements
Outcome
  • Workshop to align company voice & tone
  • Budget to grow the design team
  • Allocated budget to conduct a market research to identify the market cap and main user personas.
  • Improvements on contact center systems & introduction of a Knowledge base repository to answer customers' efficiency
  • Improve the customer satisfaction and reduce the churn rate.
Reliable - Fun - Approachable
Voice & Tone
Our voice is built on the BlueSG traits of being Reliable, Fun, Approachable, and Efficient. This ensures that we always provide a friendly and helpful experience for our users.
UX Vision & Pillers
Deliver a delightful and intuitive experience that engages the community and integrating car sharing into daily life.
Delightful We make the experience pleasurable. We delight by personalizing content, incorporating micro-interactions, and paying a lot of attention to details and aesthetics.
Empowering It's important to create experiences that empower people and make them feel capable of achieving their goals, regardless of their level of experience.
Visibility We always stay in real-time touch with the user, informing them about immediate inside and outside factors in a clear, distinctive way.
DESIGN TEAM
Growing the team
Hiring pipeline and referral pools dried up and we still had two open positions to fill due to growth, I knew we had to think outside the box. That’s when I took it upon myself to create a compelling job ad deck using Figma that resonated with the design community and inspired many talented candidates to apply.
  • Recruiting process.
  • Take home assigment.
  • Designer career path
From Stage 3 Emergent to Stage 4 Structured
Approach
Post-mortem analysis for management on the Double Diamond process, which applied the previous success initiative.
  • Standardizing the design process
  • Introduce the UX Professional development & regular collaboration cadence
  • Creating unifying design principles accross the UX team
  • Establish centralized UX resources such as a Design system, Research repositories, and research panel
  • Build a relationship with the Management team including regular insights sharing, UX metrics dashboard sharing
Outcome
  • Detailed Double Diamond Design processes includes when/where/how to choose research , when/where to collaborate with different departments.  Read more >>>
  • Based on BlueSG, user personas developed perceivable & operable accessibility standards together with readability standards.
  • Weekly team knowledge sharing sessions & design critiques
  • UX metrics & insights for sharing to management on a regular basis & regular 1-1 sessions with CTO/CPO
  • Miro Research synthesis repository and BlueSG research panel
  • Tokanised Atomic design system
  • Budget for continuous research
DESIGN PROCESS
Double Diamond Process
Facilitate a workshop with the Product team and finalize the Double Diamond process for BlueSG.
  • Structured process
  • Iterative approach
  • Holistic Prospective
  • Collaboration
  •  Read more >>>
Unifying Design Guidelines
Accessibility
Our guidelines for accessibility are driven by four principles. They spell out the acronym POUR. Read more >>
  • Perceivable
  • Operable
  • Understandable
  • Robust
TEAM GROWTH
Building culture through other team rituals
🎓 User Experience University (UXU): These bi-weekly workshops and presentations are an opportunity for us to share knowledge and train each other on design topics.
🎨 Design Critique: Every week, we gather to present our work and receive feedback from the team. This is a chance for us to learn to improve our craft and ensure coherency throughout the product. This provides an opportunity for us to see what everyone is working on and stay connected.
🏢 Team Collaboration Monday: While the majority of us are remote, we still try to gather in person on a regular basis.
DIRECTION
Building the Design System
Developed a tokenized design system grounded in atomic design principles to enhance scalability and consistency across the product.
  • Atoms
  • Moleculs
  • Organism
  • Templates
Key Colors and Tonal Pallet
Key colors representing our value propositions and the tonal pallet from its’ tints and shades.
Type scale and formatting
Define the type scales and the formatting to address different use cases across the app.
DESIGN TOKEN
The bridge between design and code
Having a design system greatly enhances consistency and efficiency, simplifying our workflow and speeding up the process. However, the challenge lies in making the design system truly beneficial for engineers and ensuring consistency between our Figma designs and the codebase. This is where design tokens come in, acting as a bridge between design and code. Our engineers appreciated this approach, recognizing its value in maintaining consistency, efficiency, and ease of maintenance. As a result, developed our own token system which reduce the desing & development effort by 25%-30%.
For continuous Research
BlueSG Research panel
Established a dedicated research panel within the company to enable ongoing, streamlined research. This initiative improved data collection, provided valuable insights, and fostered a culture of continuous innovation, enhancing data-driven decision-making across teams.
  • User Interviews
  • Surveys
  • Usability test
  • Beta testing
From Stage 4 Structured to Stage 5 Integrated [On going]
Approach
Post-mortem analysis for management on the Double Diamond process, which applied the previous success initiative.
  • Analysing the existing processes and continuous improvement
  • Encourage other departments to learn UX
  • Connect user data & design efforts to product & company vision
  • Adapting to fit the other department in to design process
Outcome
  • Tokenized design system helps front-end teams work faster and deliver higher quality results.
  • Introduce new Quick Win framework called Design backlog to utilized front-end team effectively.
  • Product road-map initiative prioratised based in past user research data
  • After sharing our user-centric design process, other departments were inspired to adopt a similar user-focused approach
BlueSG is currently in Transition in Stage 4 Structured to Stage 5 Integrated
Overall Impact
With the new app revamp, total rental conversion increased by 22%
With Tokanised Design System
  • By reusing standardized components, teams spend less time designing and coding from scratch. Reduce the tech cost by 25%-30%
  • Faster Time-to-Market, Streamlined workflows let teams launch new features and products quicker, capturing market opportunities and revenue sooner
  • Consistency Reduces Errors, Fewer inconsistencies mean less time and money spent on fixing bugs and design mistakes, which also lowers support costs