Achieving Consistency Across 40+ Products: Hubtel's Butterfly Design System Case Study

Achieving Consistency Across 40+ Products: Hubtel's Butterfly Design System Case Study

Overview

Hubtel is a leading fintech and e-commerce company in Ghana, renowned for its innovative digital payment solutions and strong customer engagement services. Since its inception, Hubtel has transformed Ghana's financial technology landscape with seamless, secure, and efficient payment systems. Their diverse offerings include mobile money services, e-commerce platforms, and digital wallets, serving millions of customers and businesses. Hubtel's commitment to technological excellence and user-centric design has solidified its position as a market leader in the region.

Role

As a core team member, I directed most design initiatives and partnered with designers, product managers, and developers throughout the project.

Goal

The objective is to establish a cohesive visual language across platforms, ensuring consistency for over 40 Hubtel products. This entails developing reusable design components and a comprehensive UI kit for a universally recognisable user interface

Why do this?

Why do this? The decision to create this design system is driven by our need for efficient collaboration across our expanding team and projects, ensuring a consistent user experience across different products and platforms. Here's why:

  • Scale Design: A unified design system supports effective expansion of our design efforts as we grow.
  • Manage Design Debt: It allows us to handle and reduce inconsistencies over time.
  • Design Consistency: Ensures all our products have a cohesive look and feel, enhancing usability and brand identity.
  • Iterate More Quickly: Enables faster feedback collection and design refinement.
  • Focus on User Experience: Provides clear guidelines, allowing teams to focus on delivering an exceptional user experience.

Team

Roadmap

June 2023 - Present

Inception

  1. Brand & Product Audit
  2. Design Principles Workshop
  3. Identifying Challenges

Conception

  1. Design Exploration for Web & Mobile Apps
  2. Brand Alignment
  3. Concept Development

Refinement

  1. Product Flow Testing
  2. Refining Colors, Typography, Iconography, Components
  3. User Testing

Implementation

  1. Component Prioritisation
  2. Documentation
  3. Handoff & Collaboration with Engineering
  4. Design System Implementation

Inception

What is the Visual Language of Hubtel?

Hubtel's visual language is guided by our design principles: Simplicity, Accessibility, Aesthetic, Consistency, and Usability. These principles ensure a cohesive and intuitive user experience across all products.

Brand & Product Audit

  • 500+ Components Identified: A comprehensive audit revealed over 500+ unique components.
  • Streamlined Patterns: Patterns were refined based on usage and usability.
  • Contrasting Colors: Key colors were identified to enhance readability and accessibility.

Conception

Result of the concept stage

image of process diagram

Refinement

Created the design system, named Butterfly.Thoroughly tested every component of the design system across multiple applications.A team to oversee the creation of Butterfly combining technical & design expertise.

Design System Plan

  • Created the design system, named Butterfly.
  • Thoroughly tested every component of the design system across multiple applications.
  • A team to oversee the creation of Butterfly combining technical & design expertise.
image of process diagram

Implementation

image of process diagram

Implementation of the New Design Ssytem

  • Implemented new designs 350+ flows, Conducted workshops what we call “OPERATION”, had full support from development and product teams.

Outcome

Accomplishments