Overview
GETTR went from launch to 5.5M+ users in well under a year, and design couldn't keep up with the pace of shipping. I led UX and the design system so several teams could build in parallel without the product drifting apart — holding quality and consistency steady while requirements changed week to week.
Context
GETTR was adding users and features at the same time, fast. New things shipped in parallel, priorities moved weekly, and everyone expected speed without the product getting worse. That combination — growing the user base and the feature set at once — is exactly where a product usually starts to fall apart at the seams.
Problem
Shipping that fast pulled the experience in different directions. Features started diverging, interaction patterns split between teams, and every new area added debt because there were no shared standards to lean on. Left alone, the speed itself would have been what broke the UX.
Key issues included
- •The experience diverging as features shipped in parallel
- •Interaction patterns splitting between teams and product areas
- •Every new area adding debt with no shared standards to lean on
- •Hard to keep design output fast without quality slipping
My Responsibility
I owned the UX and the system-level design across the platform, end to end.
Most of it was turning fast, half-formed requirements from PMs and stakeholders into something coherent before the next thing landed.
Solution
I leaned into standards and clarity so several teams could move at once without the product splintering. That meant scalable UX frameworks for the new areas, one set of interaction patterns and IA, cleanup of existing features to match, and a design system built to keep delivery fast and consistent. With that in place, teams could work in parallel and still land in the same product.
Approach
- •Gathered the inputs scattered across user requests, stakeholders, marketing, and competitor teardowns into one place, so teams weren't each guessing at direction
- •Designed and validated 42 user flows and 300+ wireframes across new and existing features, edge cases included
- •Rebuilt the design system on Atomic Design for both web and app so several teams could ship from the same parts
- •Made the recurring decisions once, up front, so people stopped relitigating the same patterns every sprint
UX Research & Analysis
I conducted continuous UX and market research to inform design decisions. This included competitive analysis of major social platforms, analysis of existing UX friction points, and evaluation of emerging interaction patterns. Research was pragmatic and delivery-oriented, optimized for speed and relevance rather than academic depth.
Insights informed feature prioritization, information architecture, and interaction design.
UX Design Execution
The design process involved a high volume of structured UX work: 42 user flows designed and validated, 300+ wireframes created across features.
Wireframing was used as a primary tool for fast exploration, stakeholder alignment, early risk detection, and reducing rework in high-fidelity stages.
Design System
I evolved the GETTR Design System using Atomic Design methodology. Key contributions: standardized components across Web and App, unified interaction patterns, scalable component architecture, improved design-to-development handoff.
The system enabled faster feature delivery while maintaining UX consistency under high pressure.
Impact
- •A UX foundation that could keep up with fast feature work
- •More consistency across product areas
- •Less friction when teams shipped in parallel
- •The design system became the thing that let the team keep its speed
- •Held up under internal reviews, analytics, and day-to-day team use
Reflection
"When you're shipping this fast, the system is the only thing keeping the product from splintering. Skipping it feels faster for a week and then costs you months. That lesson went straight into the fintech and DeFi work that came after."
