Humara · 2023

One design system for every brand on the Guided Selling Engine

15gifts' Guided Selling Engine helps millions of customers choose the right plan for brands like Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile and Verizon. I rebuilt the multi-brand design system behind it, so each brand could be customised without rebuilding components.

Product Designer · PM, frontend developer

What it was

15gifts (now Humara) builds guided selling journeys for telecom and media brands like Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile and Verizon. Every brand needs its own look and rules, but they all run on one engine.

When I joined, the components weren't flexible enough for that. Small changes, like adding an icon to a button or a step to a calculator, meant detaching and rebuilding components from scratch, which slowed everyone down and made brands drift apart.

What I learned

Fix the foundations in the quiet weeks
There wasn't support for a big overhaul, so I didn't ask for one. I used quieter periods to reorganise the system into three clear layers: journey components, template components and full templates. That hierarchy made it much easier to adapt when a new brand came on board.
Small component changes compound
The answer component had one vague property and a pile of near-identical variants. Giving it clear options for variant, state and selection made its behaviour obvious, and the same approach carried over to accordions and plan cards. Better building blocks meant less time fighting limitations.
Give improvements a safe place to land
I built and tested new components in a separate space in our base file before they touched live builds, so the system could improve without disrupting ongoing work. Designers could tweak components without breaking them, and developers got clearer answers.