Documentolog
Document Flow & Job Search Platform
B2B/B2C · 100K+ MAU · Design System · Team Leadership
Work Documentolog

From sole designer to Head of Design — building a team and the product

Company
Documentolog
Role
Product Designer → Head of Design
Timeline
Dec 2020 – Aug 2023 · 2.5 years
Scope
UX · UI · Design System · Leadership
100K+
Monthly active users on the platform
+14%
Documents sent after redesign (28-day window)
+18%
Success rate improvement after redesign
1→5
Design team grown from scratch over 2.5 years
DEC 2020 — FEB 2023
Product Designer
First and only designer in the company. Built the design practice from the ground up: research, UI, prototyping, and advocacy.
FEB 2023 — AUG 2023
Head of Design Department
Promoted from individual contributor. Hired, mentored, and led a team of 5 designers. Voted Employee of the Year.
OVERALL IMPACT
Entire design culture built
No design function → 5-person team, design system, research practice, and a seat at the product table.
"I joined as a Product Designer — the first and only designer in a 120-person company. Two years later, I was running the department."

Documentolog is a B2B/B2C document exchange platform with 100K+ monthly active users. When I joined, there was no design function, no design system, and no culture of user research. I started as an individual contributor doing everything myself — and over 2.5 years built all of it.

I worked on multiple products across the company, including the core document management platform and a job search service. Below is a deep-dive into the document sending redesign — the most impactful single project of my time there.

Document sending was quietly breaking

Support tickets flagged document sending as the third most common issue. Digging into the data revealed the scale of the problem:

24%
Drop in documents sent over 6 months
32%
Decline in sending success rate
Of users getting stuck in the sending flow

Users couldn't find the most basic action

Stakeholder interviews, user surveys, usability testing, and competitive analysis all pointed to the same root cause: the UI buried key actions and gave users no clear path forward.

7 / 12
Surveyed clients couldn't identify how to send documents via SMS or email — the product's core action
78%
Of test users completed sending tasks 40% faster with the redesigned interface vs. the original

Root issues: action buttons for signing and sending were hard to locate, sending options were fragmented across the UI, and status indicators were misleading — users clicked on them expecting actions.

Before → After

BEFORE
Fragmented sending options
SMS, email, link, and directory contacts scattered across different parts of the UI.
No document history
Users had no visibility into who received a document, when, or its current status.
Misleading status indicators
Status badges looked clickable — users expected actions, found nothing.
Unnecessary creation steps
The flow required steps that added friction without adding value.
AFTER
Unified sending panel
All options — link, SMS, email, contacts — accessible from one place, in one step.
Document history
Sender details, timestamps, and status progression visible at a glance.
Clear, non-clickable statuses + action buttons
Status is status. Actions are buttons. No ambiguity.
Streamlined flow
Unnecessary steps removed. Sending a document became fast and obvious.

What I shipped

DESIGN SYSTEM

40+ page system covering all scenarios and edge cases. Full component library, specs, tokens — used by developers daily.

DOCUMENT PLATFORM

Full redesign of document creation, signing, and sending flows. Reduced friction at every step of the core user journey.

JOB SEARCH SERVICE

End-to-end design for a new job search product — separate vertical with its own flows, UI, and experience patterns.

UX RESEARCH

User interviews, surveys, usability testing, competitive analysis. Research became a first-class part of the process.

PROTOTYPES & TESTING

Comparative prototype testing with 30 participants validating design direction before development.

TEAM LEADERSHIP

Hired and mentored 4 designers. Conducted technical interviews, built workflows, ran design critiques. One became a team lead.

Numbers that moved

+14%
Documents sent in 28-day period post-launch
+18%
Success rate, stabilized after previous 32% decline
−9%
Support inquiries related to document sending

Building the design culture from zero

After years of being the only designer, I made the case for growing the team. I ran the hiring process, conducted technical interviews, and mentored every designer I brought in.

"One of those designers is now a team lead. Another is a mid-level at a major fitness brand. The third took over my Head of Design position when I left."

I was voted Employee of the Year by both colleagues and management — and became part of the company's core team. The goal throughout: raise the UX maturity of the entire organization.

Next project
IOC Olympics App