Finding the right opportunity
not just the right interface
Making Complexity Optional
2024
Designing a simplified inventory planning experience for small-to-medium retailers, and aligning it to the parent company's design system — without missing the six-month beta deadline.
Working across South Africa and the UK, I designed Essentials: a simplified inventory planning experience for small and medium retailers. I owned the journey from onboarding and integrations to trust-building and growth, while helping steer the product toward its new parent company's design system. The beta shipped in six months.
Project Snapshot
Scale
Beta delivered in 6 months following enterprise acquisition
Designed for hundreds of retail businesses, expanding into the SME market
First product aligned to a new parent-company design system
Complexity
Balanced rapid delivery with enterprise governance and technical constraints
Simplified sophisticated inventory planning without reducing user trust
Worked across product, engineering and commercial teams throughout delivery
Impact
Increased trust through formula transparency rather than hiding complexity
Minimal design-to-build rework through continuous collaboration
Established principles that informed future design system adoption
Context
I worked as an Associate Product Designer at Clearleft, embedded in a close-knit product team across South Africa and the UK.
The client was an inventory planning platform used by hundreds of medium-to-large retailers, recently acquired by a larger enterprise software company.
Our brief was twofold: design Essentials, a lighter version of the platform for small-to-medium retailers, while beginning to align the product with its new parent company’s design system. We had six months, and momentum mattered.
The Problem
Smaller retailers didn't need fewer features. They needed less friction.
The existing onboarding was built for enterprise teams, making it slow and overwhelming for businesses that needed to get up and running quickly.
Research uncovered a deeper issue: users didn't trust the platform's recommendations because they couldn't see how the calculations worked.
At the same time, the product had just been acquired and hadn't yet adopted its new parent company's design language. There were no shared principles or component library to build from.
Essentials needed to be more than a simplified version of the product. It had to deliver value quickly, build trust from day one, and create a foundation that could grow alongside customers.
This wasn't just a simplification project. It was about reducing time to value, rebuilding confidence, and laying the groundwork for a scalable design system, all within six months.
My Role
I designed at high fidelity from day one, testing ideas early with users and the product team instead of waiting for polished mockups. Three themes shaped the work.
Designing Essentials
I reimagined the Shopify integration as a simple first step rather than a technical hurdle, and redesigned onboarding around users' jobs to be done instead of product features. I also differentiated first-time welcome screens from returning experiences, helping users discover more as they became familiar with the product.
To address the trust gap, I designed and iterated on a collapsible formula transparency table that let users see the calculations behind the platform's recommendations. I also introduced subtle upsell moments, making the path to the full product feel like a natural next step as businesses grew.
Building the foundation
Alongside the product work, I created design principles and a component guide to begin aligning the platform with its new parent company's design system. Rather than treating this as a separate initiative, every new screen contributed to a more consistent foundation.
Designing with engineering
I worked closely with engineers throughout the project, validating ideas as they evolved so we could move quickly without compromising what was practical to build.
The Real Challenge
Enterprise software often becomes powerful at the expense of clarity. The challenge isn't simplifying complexity, it's making sophisticated systems understandable enough that people trust them and can make confident decisions.
Hiding complexity would have been the easy answer, but it was also what had eroded trust in the first place. Instead of removing complexity, I made it optional, giving users access to the underlying calculations when they wanted them.
The same thinking shaped the design system. Following the acquisition, the product needed to begin aligning with its new parent company's design system without disrupting delivery. Every component became a trade-off between shipping quickly and building for the future. I reused what already worked, aligned with the parent system wherever possible, and defined new components only where the product's needs weren't yet supported.
Onboarding, integrations, formula transparency, upsell, and the design system weren't separate problems. They were all part of the same journey: helping users move from uncertainty to confidence while guiding the product toward a cohesive future within its new parent company. Close collaboration with engineering made that possible, ensuring every decision was both ambitious and practical.
Key Decisions
Don't simplify the maths. Make it transparent.
Why?
Trust mattered more than simplicity.
Trade-off
Transparency over simplification. Rather than hiding the complexity of inventory planning, we exposed it in ways users could understand and trust.
Early Traction
Shipped the Essentials beta in six months, taking the product from concept to a live experience tested with small-to-medium retailers.
Introduced formula transparency, giving users visibility into the platform's calculations and helping address a key trust barrier identified in research.
Established the team's first shared design principles and component guide following the acquisition, creating a foundation for future product work.
Worked closely with engineering throughout, resulting in minimal rework between design and implementation and keeping delivery on schedule.
What this reinforced
This project reinforced that simplifying a product is rarely about removing features. It's about building trust, reducing friction, and making complexity available when users need it.
It also taught me that design systems are a balancing act. I had to align the product with its new parent company's system where it made sense, while proposing new components where the existing system couldn't support the product's needs. The goal wasn't perfect consistency overnight, but steady progress without slowing delivery.
Most importantly, working closely with engineering kept those decisions grounded, so we could move quickly without creating problems for the future.
Results
Shipping Time (beta)
6 months
Systems Design
Shared design principles & component guide
