Case Study
Leading a Design Transformation
in a Legacy Organisation
By Jue Feng I 2025
Photo by Alfred Liu on Unsplash
Background
A well-established B2B company with a strong technical product struggled to differentiate itself in the market. While their engineering team was top-tier, design had always been an afterthought—scattered across teams with no unified strategy. Their digital products were functional but lacked a cohesive user experience, leading to customer frustration and increased churn.
Challenge
As the newly appointed Head of Design, my mission was to embed design thinking into the organisation, unify fragmented efforts, and establish a scalable design process. However, I faced three major hurdles:
- Lack of executive buy-in – Leadership saw design as a support function rather than a strategic driver.
- Disjointed teams – Designers worked in silos, often responding to last-minute requests instead of being part of the product development process.
- Resistance to change – Engineers and product managers were accustomed to a feature-first approach, dismissing the value of user research and iterative design.
Approach
To drive transformation, I focused on three key areas:
Building Strategic Buy-In
- Instead of pitching design as aesthetics, I tied it directly to business metrics—customer retention, conversion rates, and support costs.
- I collaborated with a few open-minded product managers to run a small pilot project that showcased the impact of UX improvements. This resulted in a 15% drop in support tickets for that feature, which caught leadership’s attention.
- I positioned design as an enabler of innovation rather than just a service provider.
Establishing Design Operations
- I introduced a centralized design system to bring consistency across products and reduce redundant design work.
- Implemented design reviews and crit sessions, fostering a culture of collaboration instead of isolated efforts.
- Introduced UX research as a standard practice, ensuring we were solving real user problems instead of assuming what customers needed.
Cultural Shift Through Education
- Hosted design thinking workshops for product and engineering teams, demonstrating how user-centered design speeds up development rather than slowing it down.
- Embedded designers within cross-functional teams to co-design solutions rather than just handing off UI mockups.
- Created quick wins by improving high-friction areas, like onboarding flows, which reduced drop-offs by 17%.
Outcome
Within 19 months, design evolved from a reactive support function to a core business driver. Key results included:
- Design influence at the leadership level – Design was now a key player in strategic decision-making.
- Improved product success metrics – Increased engagement, fewer support escalations, and higher customer satisfaction scores.
- Scaling the team – The design team grew from 3 to 12 members, with dedicated roles for research, systems design, and UX writing.
Conclusion
Design transformation isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s about changing mindsets, proving value through measurable impact, and embedding design into the DNA of an organization. By aligning design with business goals and fostering collaboration, I was able to shift the perception of design from a last-minute layer to a strategic advantage.
Thinking About Your Own Design Transformation?
Whether you’re scaling a new team, reshaping product direction, or maturing a design practice — I’d love to hear where you are in the journey. Let’s explore what’s next.