CASE STUDY 1: VIRTUOSO QA

Building a UX Function Inside a B2B SaaS Startup

Role: Head of UX
Duration: Jan 2021 – Present
Sector: B2B SaaS / QA Automation

The Challenge

When I joined VirtuosoQA, UX was an afterthought. The product team was engineering-led, there was no research function, and design decisions were made ad-hoc by developers and PMs. The result was a powerful QA automation platform with a steep learning curve and inconsistent UI patterns that slowed onboarding and increased support tickets.

The Approach

I was hired to fix this — not by polishing screens in isolation, but by building a UX department and the processes that would sustain it.

  • Hired the first dedicated UX designers and established a research practice, including user interview programmes and usability testing cadences.

  • Created a living design system that unified the product interface, reduced one-off component requests, and gave engineers a predictable build path.

  • Embedded UX into the Agile workflow: I introduced design critiques, sprint-based prototyping, and a "prototype-first" rule so that features were validated with users before engineering effort was committed.

  • Championed user-centred metrics inside the product roadmap, shifting prioritisation conversations from "what can we ship?" to "what reduces time-to-value for the user?"

The Outcome

  • UX now supports 100% of the product roadmap, up from an informal, reactive role.

  • The design system reduced design-to-development rework by an estimated 30% and cut average UI implementation time.

  • Onboarding flow redesigns reduced new-user drop-off during initial project setup.

  • Established a research repository that now informs roadmap decisions quarterly.