Essense
Role
Principal Designer
Project type
Product Design
Project description
Essense is an AI-powered platform that transforms qualitative customer feedback and competitor reviews into actionable insights. Focus your product roadmap on the most critical customer needs and improve customer adoption and engagement
Context
When I joined Essense as the lead product designer, the product had been built by a single engineer and lacked any consistent design foundation.
The UI was fragmented, user flows were outdated, and there was no scalable system to support the company’s growth.
The challenge was to completely redesign the product, introduce new features, and create a design system that could serve as the backbone for future development.
Challenge
Refactor the existing product and modernize its UI.
Build a scalable design system that could work within Mantine (a React component library), but later evolve into a fully independent UI library.
Improve core user flows, starting with onboarding, which had a very low conversion rate.
Guide a team of designers through consistent execution while maintaining speed and quality.
Introduce new product features that would increase user engagement and differentiate Essense in the market.
Projects
Process
Design leadership: I directed a team of designers, providing art direction, reviews, and mentoring to ensure consistency across the platform.
Design system: I built a new DS from scratch. Initially, it was aligned with Mantine to reduce developer overhead, but later we forked it into a modern, standalone UI library with a more fresh and competitive look.
User research & analytics: We integrated MixPanel to track behavior and identify weak spots in the UX. For example, analysis revealed significant drop-offs during onboarding.
Flow redesign: Using insights, we redesigned onboarding and registration flows for clarity and simplicity.
New features: I led the design of innovative modules like Competitor Analysis, Comparison tools, and the Essense Score — a proprietary rating system reflecting user reviews.
Visual principles: The new UI was designed to be clean, modern, and data-driven — with strong typography, modular layouts, and scalable components that supported rapid iteration.
Project Feed
Solution
Complete UI redesign with a consistent, modern visual identity.
Fully functioning design system adopted by both design and development teams.
Refactored and optimized core flows, making the product easier to use and more professional.
Added high-value features to strengthen the product’s positioning in the market.
Insights
Impact
4–5x increase in onboarding-to-registration conversion after the redesign.
30% faster design-to-development handoff thanks to the new design system.
Reduced inconsistencies by ~70% across UI components.
Positive feedback from stakeholders and early adopters who highlighted the product’s improved clarity and modern look.
