Affiliate Platform
The platform which helps users discover online casinos and make informed decisions about where to play.
The project began with the need to bring structure and consistency to a growing portfolio of affiliate websites operating across multiple markets. Each website had evolved independently, resulting in different visual styles, content structures and commercial experiences. The goal was to create a unified product foundation that could improve usability and trust while remaining flexible enough to accommodate the needs of different markets.
We began by researching user needs and problems in the existing experience. Surveys across the platform received more than 150 responses within a few days, revealing recurring issues around trust, information clarity and commercial communication, as well as differences between markets. These insights, combined with analytics data, informed the personas and improvement priorities.
The product was then redesigned around a more user-centred approach. We improved commercial content and key decision-making areas, used A/B testing to validate important changes, and focused on ranking tables as a key user and business touchpoint. A flexible design system supported multiple markets through shared components and market-specific variables.
The result was a more consistent and scalable product experience, with a design process grounded in user research, business objectives and continuous optimisation.
year
2023
timeframe
6 months
tools
Figma, HotJar
category
UI/UX
The Challenge
The platform had evolved without a unified product or design strategy, resulting in inconsistent experiences across 5 websites. Outdated UI patterns, limited mobile optimisation, and inconsistent content and commercial experiences reduced usability and, importantly, made it harder to establish trust. The challenge was therefore not simply to redesign the websites, but to create a scalable product foundation that could support different markets while improving the experience for users and the business.
The Product
The redesign introduced a user-centred product approach based on research, testing and a scalable design system. By combining user insights with commercial and analytics data, we identified the key problems affecting the experience and prioritised improvements around trust, content clarity, product discovery and conversion. A flexible design system then provided a consistent foundation across markets while allowing individual websites to adapt to local requirements. This created a more cohesive product experience without sacrificing the flexibility needed for different markets.
User Personas
To translate the research into actionable product decisions, I created four personas representing the main user segments. They combined survey findings with analytics data to capture users' goals, behaviours, motivations, and frustrations.
Rather than treating personas as documentation, we used them as a reference when evaluating features and prioritising improvements. This helped connect UX decisions to specific user needs and identify opportunities to improve both satisfaction and conversion.
Design System
One of the biggest product design challenges was creating a design system that could support multiple markets without fragmenting the product experience. Commercial components needed enough flexibility to reflect the visual and business requirements of each market, while still sharing a consistent underlying structure. I solved this by introducing market-specific variables, allowing the same components to adapt their visual properties across markets without creating separate component versions. This approach made the system more scalable and maintainable, reduced design duplication, and made it easier for the product team to introduce new market-specific requirements as the platform evolved.
Product Decisions
Research identified trust, clarity, and mobile usability as key areas for improvement, while the product also needed to balance user needs with commercial goals across multiple markets. We prioritised clearer information and stronger content hierarchy, redesigned commercial elements around the user’s decision-making process, and adopted a mobile-first approach focused on key journeys and touch interactions. To support multiple markets without fragmenting the experience, I created a shared product foundation with controlled flexibility, using market-specific variables within the design system to adapt commercial components to local requirements. This approach improved consistency and scalability while making the product easier to maintain and evolve.
Outcome
The project transformed a fragmented set of affiliate websites into a more consistent and scalable product experience. By combining user research, commercial insights, testing, and a flexible design system, we created a stronger foundation for improving both user experience and business performance across markets. The new approach also made the product easier to evolve. Shared components and market-specific variables reduced design duplication while allowing teams to adapt the experience to local requirements. Most importantly, design decisions became more closely connected to user needs, conversion goals, and measurable product outcomes rather than being driven purely by visual consistency.
