The Background
The client was undergoing major internal change, with teams stretched thin and frequent staff turnover creating disruption across their product suite. As internal designers were redirected to focus on a new flagship product, my colleague and I were brought in to take ownership of the existing “Classic Products” — a group of up to 50 healthcare applications spanning primary care, hospital care, aged care, and virtual care.
The Brief
Initially brought on to support UI conformance for new government healthcare initiatives, our scope quickly expanded to include ongoing design and usability improvements across a suite of legacy and in-progress applications. Working across primary care, hospital care, virtual care, and aged care, we had the opportunity to refine the experience, modernise legacy pages, and introduce scalable UI patterns in collaboration with developers and stakeholders.
The Users
Each application serves a distinct user group, giving me the opportunity to design for a wide range of users with diverse and highly specific needs
My Process
Onboarding
Onboarded across multiple design systems and complex Figma file structures
Met with product teams to understand workflows, priorities, and technical constraints
Discovery
Collaborated with cross-functional teams including product managers, developers, testers, and other designers
Design
Asked targeted questions to uncover user needs, system behaviour, and business logic
Extracted information from stakeholders across the business to inform better design decisions
Collaboration
Designed and refined UI components and screens to improve usability, consistency, and alignment with the latest design system
Ensured accessibility considerations were integrated into every design update
Reviews
Participated in regular design reviews with my colleague and senior designers to maintain alignment and consistency
Conducted detailed design QA to ensure accurate implementation
Design Handovers
Created precise annotations and design specs to support developer handoff
Maintained open communication with developers to clarify edge cases and technical limitations
User Testing
Tested designs with clinicians to gather feedback and improve usability
System and File Hygiene
Updated the design system and ensured Figma files reflected the latest UI patterns and page designs, maintaining clear organisation for team-wide visibility and consistency
Integration within the healthcare environment
Balanced conformance requirements with practical user needs in a complex healthcare environment
Tools
Figma
60%
Jira
25%
Confluence
15%
Key Challenges
Time constraints
Due to the disorganisation across teams, design work often came in ad hoc and needed to be completed within extremely tight timeframes, sometimes within a day or two. This made it difficult to balance quick turnarounds while maintaining high design quality and adherence to accessibility standards
Lack of communication
Fragmented communication between teams and constant on/off-boarding made it difficult to gather clear requirements, align priorities, and uncover critical contextual information early in the process.
What We Did About It
Together with the team, we established a regular meeting cadence, clarified handover processes, and defined how work should be prioritised and delivered. The product owner also set up a design-specific Jira filter to streamline task intake. This not only resolved time pressure issues but also improved communication across stakeholders.
To maintain visibility, we created a shared Confluence page outlining all ongoing work, design statuses, ticket links, Figma files, and design ownership. This became a central reference point and helped keep everyone aligned and up to date.
The Result
My Key Takeaways
Deepened UI expertise through hands-on work refining interfaces and improving visual consistency
Took initiative in communicating with stakeholders to gather context and align on requirements
Strengthened organisational skills managing design files, documentation, and multi-product workflows
Gained further experience updating and maintaining design systems
Learned to balance consistency with flexibility when reusing or creating new components
Learned to question design requests to uncover underlying needs and deliver more effective solutions
Improved time management under pressure, delivering quality work within tight timelines
