Case: Frequence
Challenge
Frequence was a bootstrapped, founder-led company transitioning toward organizational maturity under a hired CEO. Its platform had been built over a decade through a mix of intentional roadmap decisions, customer requests, and the need to fix accumulated technical debt.
The company was simultaneously maintaining the legacy platform while rebuilding.
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Learn the existing platform and business.
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Play into business strategy of giving the platform a "long tail" (catering to smaller agencies).
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Provide a UX update for the platform
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Define a UX vision for the new platform
Approach
- Broad cross organizational out reach
- Customer journey mapping with internal and external goals (ensuring alignment with strategy)
- Utilizing Tailwind UI library to speed up UI development and align work to new platform backlog
Role:
Director of Documentation and UX.
Setting the Expectations
The design work was heavily dependent on a customer journey analysis, that I collaborated on with the founders and CEO.
Below are the two slides I used to communicate approach and high level roadmap for the work.
At Frequence, "a pod" was a way of organizing feature work. Each pod consisted of developers, QA engineers and PMs. It was similar to a feature team in approach. With the build out we ended having a UX designer as part of each pod.
Conceptual Approach
The work at Frequence needed to balance both strategic and tactical priorities. With little precedent for involving users in design reviews, most feedback came from internal teams, particularly professional services and sales.
My early design concepts drew on established design patterns and widely adopted market conventions, providing a stable and recognizable foundation for the evolving platform.
Initial concept wireframe. This was done before we locked on using the Tailwind UI library.
Flows
In some areas of the experience, existing flows had to be maintained. The challenge was balancing the value of introducing more, subjectively, user-friendly alternatives against the potential training costs for long-time users who had relied on the platform for over a decade.
Introducing Personas
I introduced lightweight personas to help the team focus on core user pain points.
Developing these, with input from professional services, proved valuable for aligning the design team internally. However, they were not widely adopted by product management.
Building a Prototype
Communicating the broader strokes of the proposed redesign was done through sharing a Figma prototype.
Key Insights
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The work at Frequence was lean, fast-moving, and focused on immediate value, with UX making a significant impact on the main platform experience.
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The company ultimately chose not to pursue the “long tail” strategy of targeting smaller agencies, prioritizing retention of enterprise customers instead.
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With this strategic shift, UX contributions became primarily tactical, after which I transitioned to independent consulting.
Accomplishments
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Defined a customer-journey–based product and UX strategy in collaboration with founders and the CEO.
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Built, operationalized, and scaled a remote product design and documentation team of 6.
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Led a full platform UI/UX redesign using the Tailwind design system to reduce costs.
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Acted as product owner and manager for the UI design library in close partnership with development.
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Delivered two versions (including the first) of the customer help portal.
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Mentored a Senior Designer into a leadership role as design lead and manager.