Client
PhiAcademy
Services
Product Discovery SaaS Strategy Research User Interviews Multi-role system Workflow Automation
Year
2022–2024
Role
UX/UI Designer
PhiCert managed certification for more than 70,000 artists in a global beauty education network. The platform itself was running, but administrators, trainers, and leadership were all losing time to a system that had expanded without ever being rethought.
Result:
40+ hours saved weekly.
€50,000+ in annual efficiency gains.
Certification capacity increased without adding headcount.
Here’s what changed, and why.
The problem
Administrators were processing certifications one by one. Trainers couldn’t complete basic tasks without submitting support requests. Data tables had grown too heavy to navigate. Leadership had no operational visibility.
Nobody had redesigned the logic. They had only added features.
I came in to fix that.
The story
What I found
The initial phase was essentially forensic. Before touching a single screen, I spent weeks mapping how the system actually worked. PhiCert wasn’t managing simple course completions. It was managing a permission-layered credentialling hierarchy: six career levels, dozens of techniques, hundreds of trainers across countries, and license agreements that governed what each trainer could teach, issue, and brand. A change in one area spread to three others. My heuristic evaluation found interface problems. But interviews with administrators and trainers across different regions revealed the real pattern: most of the support queue existed because of workflow design, not user capability.
The issue wasn’t that people couldn’t figure it out. It was that the system made simple things unnecessarily hard.
Once that was clear, the project changed from a redesign into an operational simplification initiative
The structural diagnosis
Admins, trainers, and students were all being routed through similar structures despite having fundamentally different goals. An administrator managing bulk certifications has nothing in common with a trainer checking their session schedule. Forcing them through the same information architecture created mental overload for everyone. The platform’s complexity wasn’t going away. But it didn’t need to be visible to everyone all the time.
Improvements
Role-based architecture
The redesign was built around a central principle: each role gets its own operational view, task list, and entry points into shared workflows. Admins see what admins need. Trainers see what trainers need. The underlying complexity is still there for the people who need it, but it’s no longer getting in the way for everyone else.
Bulk certificate generation
This was the biggest operational win. Previously, admins had to create certifications one by one: one student, one action, repeat. That just didn’t scale for a platform handling thousands of certifications a year.
We rebuilt this from the ground up: filter by event, validate eligibility in bulk, review, and issue. Validation rules flagged issues before approval, cutting errors and back-and-forth. What used to be a daily drain became a short task.
This wasn’t a UX enhancement. It was an operational transformation.
Data tables rebuilt for scale
The platform managed enormous amounts of structured information—trainers, students, events, licenses, and certificates—most of it in tables designed for a much smaller operation. Fixed-column layouts broke on smaller screens. Important information was buried. Filters were missing or inconsistently applied.
I rebuilt the information architecture with scalable layouts, prioritized column logic (what does this user actually need to see first?), and responsive behavior across devices.
Management visibility
Before the redesign, leadership didn’t have a clear operational view. You could find individual data points if you knew where to look, but nothing gave a real sense of what the platform was actually doing.
We introduced structured analytics and management-level reporting, designed not just as static charts, but as a foundation for future business intelligence, such as certification flow analytics, trainer performance monitoring, and automated eligibility tracking.
For a platform to evolve toward intelligent, automated workflows, leadership needs transparent, trustworthy operational data first. That’s what we built.
Language that reduces friction
The interface contained internal jargon and technical labels that made sense to engineers but confused new trainers. Confirmation dialogs added friction without adding clarity.
I systematically reviewed the platform’s language: labels, instructions, empty states, error messages, and confirmation flows. In a product built on automated processes, clear language is the difference between a user who trusts the system and one who opens a support ticket.
What the numbers mean
40+ hours saved weekly - across admin roles, from workflow automation alone
€50,000+ annual efficiency gains - conservative estimate based on time recovered
Certification capacity increased - without adding administrative headcount
Support volume reduced - as trainer autonomy improved
Leadership visibility created - from zero operational dashboard to structured reporting
The real measure of whether a workflow redesign worked: the platform scaled without requiring more people to run it.
The platform’s complexity wasn’t the problem. The problem was exposing all of it to everyone.
Stakeholders
Working with engineering
The development team used a Tailwind CSS component architecture, which shaped how I delivered design specifications. Instead of static mockups, I worked closely with engineers on responsive behavior, API dependencies, edge cases, and validation logic, and I tested continuously using live admin and trainer accounts.
Stakeholder alignment as part of the design process
Stakeholder presentations were structured around operational metrics, not design decisions. What did the old process cost? What does the new one save? That framing shifted conversations from aesthetics to business outcomes and significantly reduced implementation resistance.
Takeaways
Designing for automation and intelligent systems
PhiCert has no generative features, recommendation engine, or natural language interface. But it operates complex automated logic across a global operation—and the design decisions it required are the same ones that underpin modern AI-assisted products. Workflow automation. Role-based information filtering. Progressive complexity reduction. Scalable data visibility. Behavioral guidance without friction. These are the design primitives of intelligent product systems, regardless of the technology stack.
The work I did on PhiCert—clean data structures, correctly separated roles, optimized workflows—is exactly the preparation that makes AI features worth building later. The foundation is there. Recent training in designing with and for AI has reinforced what this project taught practically: the most critical work in intelligent systems happens before the AI components arrive.
PhiCert: PhiAcademy global platform · Product design and UX strategy · 2022–2024