Making a brand.

As this is a completely new product and company, establishing a strong and cohesive brand identity was the first essential step. This branding work will serve as the foundation for the overall design direction of the product, influencing everything from the user interface to individual design elements. Key visual components such as typography, color palettes, and iconography have been carefully considered to ensure consistency and clarity across all touchpoints.

Informed by current design trends and user preferences, I identified dark mode as a dominant visual trend for 2025. With that in mind, I’ve selected a color palette that performs effectively against dark backgrounds - balancing usability with aesthetic appeal. The chosen palette includes two bold accent colors to highlight critical actions and interface elements, ensuring they stand out in a dark-themed environment while maintaining visual harmony and accessibility.

Research

Research plays a critical - if not the most critical - role in the successful design and development of any product. A solid foundation of user insights and market data enables informed decision-making and provides a strong rationale for the design direction. While design inherently involves creativity and subjectivity, research introduces objectivity and structure, helping to validate ideas and ensure that design decisions are rooted in real-world needs rather than assumptions.

To begin shaping the direction of this recruitment product, I conducted a comprehensive review of existing tools and platforms currently in the market. This competitive analysis helped me understand prevailing user interface patterns, feature offerings, and overall user experiences provided by established recruitment solutions. Gaining this perspective is vital not only to identify best practices but also to uncover gaps and areas for innovation.

In parallel, I arranged several in-depth conversations with professionals in the tech and product sectors, many of whom have recently gone through the job-seeking process. These discussions provided valuable qualitative insights into the pain points, frustrations, and unmet needs candidates often experience when engaging with recruitment platforms. Understanding their expectations and emotional journey helps ensure that the product I’m designing is both user-centric and highly functional.

This dual approach - analyzing existing market solutions and engaging directly with end users- equips me with a clear understanding of where current tools fall short. It also opens up opportunities to differentiate this product through improved usability, smarter matching mechanisms, and a more intuitive design. Additionally, this process allows me to adopt a recruiter’s mindset, which is essential for building a tool that serves both recruiters and candidates with equal effectiveness.

Ultimately, research is the bridge between user needs and design execution. It fuels innovation and ensures that the final product not only looks good but also solves real problems in a meaningful and measurable way.

Design System

Developing a design system is essential for maintaining visual and functional consistency across the product. By creating reusable components within Figma, I can streamline the design process-enabling rapid prototyping, efficient iteration, and seamless updates to existing designs. This approach not only ensures a cohesive user experience but also improves collaboration between design and development teams.

To maintain the integrity of the system, any new components or design elements must be reviewed and approved by the lead designer before being incorporated. This governance process helps prevent unintentional deviations from the established design language, which can lead to inconsistencies, rework, and increased complexity during development.

A well-maintained design system acts as a single source of truth for the entire team, reducing redundancy and accelerating the delivery of high-quality, user-centered interfaces.

System to Screens:

With the branding and design system now fully established, I’m well-positioned to begin translating wireframes into high-fidelity designs, incorporating color, typography, and real content. This stage marks a pivotal point in the design process—where abstract structures evolve into tangible, user-facing experiences. By starting with a select few screens, I can validate the effectiveness of the design system in practice, ensuring that components function cohesively and that the overall visual language holds up across various contexts.

If the transition from wireframe to final design proves overly complex, it signals potential issues within the design system itself—whether in scalability, flexibility, or consistency. A well-structured system should facilitate, not hinder, this phase of the process.

In addition, I explore multiple visual concepts for key screens—experimenting with variations in layout, color usage, and content hierarchy. These alternative designs are then tested using tools such as HotJar, where I invite selected users to engage with the different versions. By analyzing user interaction and behavior, I can determine which design performs best in terms of usability and engagement. This data-driven approach ensures that design decisions are informed by real user feedback, allowing me to refine the interface for optimal accessibility, clarity, and overall user experience.