Designing for Operational Excellence
recognitions
Thank you for providing innovative ideas and effective solutions for business operating.
x2
Thank you for your extraordinary contribution, outstanding performance, effort, and attitude in overcoming challenges with unbelievable, excellent outcomes! Thank you for being a valuable member of the team!
Streamlining UX Across a Big Pharma Operations Ecosystem
I led the design effort for an ecosystem of operational applications supporting the full lifecycle of activities for one of the largest pharmaceutical companies. This ecosystem included seven interconnected applications focused on production, supply chain, and quality monitoring.
target audience
The primary users were employees working across manufacturing sites who relied on these applications to support the company’s daily operations.
my role & team
For the first six months on the project, I worked as the sole UX/UI designer, taking ownership of the design direction until an internal Design Lead was hired.
As a key designer, I supported 7 cross-functional product teams, which included:
Product Owner, Business Analyst, Dev Lead
FE and BE Developers, API Engineers
QA Specialists
System Architect
process
The product team operated in two-week sprints and engaged in Scrum activities, including refinement, planning and retrospective sessions.
In addition to addressing product-specific requests, I actively advocated for UX improvements across the ecosystem.
Facilitated client workshops and discovery sessions with Product Owners and end-users, ensuring a deep understanding of their needs.
challenges
Ensuring a consistent user experience across different applications without a common design library.
Supporting seven parallel development streams, each with unique requirements and priorities.
Designing with third-party libraries such as AG Grid, Highcharts, and Bootstrap to balance feasibility and design quality.
results
Earned three client recognitions for extraordinary contributions and effective solutions in business operations.
Facilitated 10+ client workshops to understand user needs and refine product requirements.
Initiated and led the creation of a common components library, streamlining design consistency across applications.
Developed fluency in AG Grid, Highcharts, and Bootstrap, allowing me to propose feasible and scalable design solutions.
Client Feedback
I had the pleasure of working closely with Valentina during her time as part of the [Client] Design team, where she consistently demonstrated exceptional skills as a UX/UI designer. Valentina’s creativity, attention to detail, and user-centric approach were evident in every project she undertook.
Valentina played a pivotal role in various initiatives. Her ability to translate complex requirements into intuitive and visually appealing designs significantly enhanced the product user experience. She constantly showcased her expertise and dedication to delivering high-quality work.
One of Valentina’s standout qualities is her collaborative spirit. She seamlessly integrated with the team, always willing to share her knowledge and support her colleagues. Her proactive approach and excellent communication skills made her a joy to work with.
I highly recommend Valentina Lebedeva for any UX/UI design role. Her talent, professionalism, and passion for design make her an asset to any team.
UX Team Lead, Assoc. Director
Building Bridges
Aligning Design and Development with Shared Components
When I joined the project, I noticed a significant gap: the customer expected a consistent user experience across their ecosystem of products, but there was no shared design library in Figma or shared components in code for developers. Designing for a large-scale ecosystem without a structured library posed considerable challenges to efficiency and consistency.
task
Advocate for the creation of a shared design system and code library to both the customer and development team.
Build a comprehensive set of design guidelines, reusable components, and interaction patterns to streamline future work.
challenges
Inconsistent UX. Each team working independently had created inconsistent design elements across six products, making it hard to maintain a unified experience.
Inefficient process & bugs. The lack of reusable components resulted in duplicated efforts, extending development time and increasing the number of bugs.
Scalability roadblocks. The absence of a centralised design system complicated scaling efforts as more products sought to adopt the same design style.
action
Audit of existing libraries. Together with the FE team, I reviewed a component library from a parallel project, but it appeared incompatible as it used Material Design while our project followed the Bootstrap framework.
Visual alignment. To maintain a consistent style across the organisation, I reused elements from the existing visual library and adjusted them to match the Bootstrap guidelines.
Component inventory. I conducted a UI audit of the products and prioritised components by frequency of usage, ensuring the most critical elements were developed first.
Design & handoff. I created & documented component states and interaction patterns in Figma, so developers could implement these components in Storybook.
result
Improved consistency. The unified design approach significantly enhanced the consistency across the ecosystem, leading to a better and more predictable user experience.
Faster development & fewer bugs. Thanks to reusable components and standardised guidelines, development time was reduced, resulting in faster product iterations and fewer bugs.
Scalability & integration. The system allowed other products outside the ecosystem to adopt the established design effortlessly, facilitating future expansion and integration.
Enhanced collaboration. The collaborative process aligned designers and developers, fostering better communication and a shared vision for the ecosystem.
Continuous improvement. We established a feedback loop to gather input from both developers and users, enabling continuous improvements to the design system.
