2015

The New Design Editor

In 2015 UXPin was an established design tool serving over two thousand companies. We've just raised our Series A (led by True Ventures and Jeff Veen – former VP of Design at Adobe). We weren't happy, though. We knew that we have to do even more to realize our mission and help the design tools industry move forward. We started a design process that changed the entire industry.

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Context

In 2015 design tools were cluttered, slow, and obtrusive. As absurdly, as it sounds, nobody on the design tools market was focused on improving the state of design software. Somebody had to change it. UXPin was well-positioned to make that change. After all, UXPin was started by designers.

Many things were wrong with the design tools of that era. According to our research, the most critical factors affecting the experience of users were: color-heavy interfaces, lots of redundant panels, lack of concern for the overall usability of the system, poor performance. All the leading design tools companies seemed satisfied with this state of affairs. We didn't want to comply.

At UXPin, we've decided to reject the status quo. We wanted to take the risk and do everything in our power to realize our mission. UXPin was started to connect design and engineering and helping the design industry progress. We could not achieve this mission without taking our design to the next level. In early 2015 we were ready to act.

Exploration

The first prototype and this video were meant to explore new interactions concepts and inspire the team to make bold decisions.

The process of working on an entirely new approach to a design editor started with a memo sent to our entire team. I argued that we shouldn't be compliant with the industry, and instead, we should focus on user feedback and our ambition to create the best tool possible.

I called out the industry to be uninspired and misguided. I shared with the team a set of principles that we were to use to guide our work and a video of a concept prototype that I created to inspire a new approach to design tooling.

After that, I invited the entire team and, especially all designers, to participate in the process of creating the new UXPin.

low fidelity prototype of new UXPin design editor
One of the first low fidelity prototypes of new UXPin.

The Process

Chart used in the process for this project
Different iterations of UXPin interface since 2010
The evolution of UXPin interface over the years.
Light and dark version of the UXPin design editor
Light and Dark mode were part of the new UXPin from day 1.

Results

  • Within 12 months of the launch of the new UXPin, nearly all design tools on the market applied our approach to UI design. Today all leading tools are similar to what we've created in 2015.
  • Overhaul of our interface and engine led to a growth in the popularity of UXPin over the next 4 years.
  • In two years after the redesign, user satisfaction grew over 100%.
  • Various performance metrics exceeded 10x improvement.
  • We've never had to do a redesign again. The universality of our principles serves us to this day!
  • Our brand became strong enough that we were able to establish enterprise sales and close +$100,000 accounts.
Combination of research and vision, empowered by strong conviction, lead to the best results.

Lessons Learned

  1. In order to do a great job, people need the right emotional environment. Contrary to the popular belief – applying pressure doesn't lead to the creation of "diamonds"
  2. Design principles, if used correctly, can be extremely powerful.
  3. Collaboration between designers and engineers leads to the best results.

Tools

  • UXPin (wireframing, prototyping, visual design)
  • Kissmetrics
  • Google Analytics

More Projects?

Ready for more of stories? Choose the next project below.
2009

Conversion Optimization

In 2009 I was trusted with the optimization of critical elements of the Nokaut.pl product page. Together with the engineering team, we've worked out a series of hypotheses based on factors affecting human attention (contrast, color, movement, pattern...) and we've performed a series of multivariable split tests. The result? 24% increase in the conversion rate.

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2010

Paper Prototyping Redesigned

The story of the notepad that changed my life

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2011

Homepage for 2.5M People

In 2011 I led the process of the redesign of Nokaut.pl Homepage. At that time, Nokaut.pl was attracting 2.5 million users a month and the owner of Nokaut.pl – Grupa Nokaut was preparing their IPO. An intense project!

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2011

Mobile App for 3 Platforms

Web products of Grupa Nokaut had been dominant (2.5 million unique visitors per month in 2011), but the company didn't have much success on the mobile market. Our mobile offering, at the time, was limited to a dated mobile version of the core service built for old cell phones. This service was highly popular couple of years earlier, but with the growing popularity of smart phones users expected "richer" experiences.

In 2010 Grupa Nokaut asked me to lead the process of designing and building a mobile app for 3 platforms: iOS, Android and Windows Mobile.

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2011

eCommerce Video Portal

I worked in the Grupa Nokaut R&D Group for over two years. We were tasked with coming up with new product ideas that addressed the most critical strategic problems of the business. One of the projects that we realized in 2011 was Nokaut.tv – an eCommerce Video Portal that quickly attracted over 100,000 viewers. I had the pleasure to lead design and product development process.

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2018

The Open Source Adventure

Since 2012 I work as a full–time CEO of a growing startup – UXPin (over 50 employees, profitable). Despite that, I've never stopped being a designer, coder, and a product person. To relax and contribute to UXPin and the overall design and engineering community, I tend to take on side projects.

In 2017, after talking to a bunch of friends working on design systems, I decided to devote my weekends to the creation of an open source repository of analyzed design systems.

For two subsequent weekends in January 2018, I designed and coded (React.js and Node.js) the repository. The popularity of this project exceeded my most optimistic expectations.

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2019

Designing for yourself is tough

I've spent way over a decade designing all sorts of products, but hardly ever – brand identities. Nevertheless, I have a deep affection for the very special connection between art and storytelling always present in great brand design.

When I decided to build my personal website, I knew that this is a great opportunity to define my brand – my story, aesthetics and message with a holistic design process.

I quickly became my own most demanding client and yet... I thoroughly enjoyed the process of designing Treder Design brand.

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