The Challenge
As GFL’s first Senior Product Designer, I led the end-to-end redesign of the enterprise Customer Portal serving 1.1 million active users. Triggered by a mandatory migration to a new payment provider, the project required transforming an outdated legacy architecture into a scalable digital product.
Operating in an environment with low design maturity, I had to navigate three core organizational and technical constraints:
Undocumented Legacy Debt: The existing platform was built on developer-led UI and fragmented external consultancy outputs. There was zero system documentation, and the portal's logic was scattered across 12 disconnected, complex modules cluttered with redundant data fields and low-relevance legacy diagrams.
Absence of Baseline User Research: The team lacked structured user insights. To inform the new product strategy, I had to find a systematic way to extract, clean, and analyze historical customer pain points without an established research pipeline.
Operational Ambiguity: I initially worked independently to audit the system, align competing business requirements between IT and commercial stakeholders, and establish a standardized design-to-development workflow, all while onboarding and mentoring a junior product designer.
The Impact
By establishing a data-backed design strategy and building GFL's first scalable system infrastructure, we successfully executed the payment migration and centralized the customer experience.
Successful Payment Provider Migration: Designed high-density payment and checkout workflows for both Guest and Commercial user tracks, ensuring a successful system migration without disruption to active revenue streams.
System Consolidation & Simplification: Restructured the portal's core logic to consolidate 12 disconnected modules into a single, unified interface. Removed legacy visual clutter and prioritized high-value data fields to streamline the primary user pathways.
First-Edition Enterprise Design System: Built and deployed GFL’s foundational design system, comprising over 50 reusable components. This asset established full visual and technical consistency across all three versions of the portal and standardized future front-end development workflows.
Data-Backed Persona Framework: Developed a research foundation by utilizing AI-driven sentiment analysis to categorize months of legacy website support tickets and bug reports. Combining these data points with internal platform metrics, I defined five core user personas to validate all subsequent architectural decisions.
Design Team Capabilities: Onboarded and mentored a junior designer, establishing internal design standards, technical documentation practices, and high-fidelity prototyping cadences that permanently replaced the company’s reliance on external agencies.
The Process
1.
Discovery & Systems Design
2 Months
Legacy Audit: Conducted an extensive audit of the legacy site to reconstruct the Information Architecture and technical requirements.
Data-Driven Personas: Defined 4 core user types by analyzing internal metrics.
System Architecture: Established the company's first Design System based on Material Design 3 for cross-project scalability.
Stakeholder Alignment: Collaborated with Dev and Marketing teams to unify the product vision with the global GFL brand.
2.
Residential Experience
4 Months
Feature Strategy: Defined 12 central platform sections in collaboration with Product, Finance, and Marketing.
Payment UX: Architected end-to-end residential payment flows and intuitive user journeys.
Technical Handoff: Delivered high-fidelity prototypes with detailed interaction notes and specs for front-end developers.
Accessibility: Implemented WCAG criteria to ensure an inclusive experience.
3.
Commercial & Guest Growth
3 Months
Design Leadership: Mentored a Junior Designer to expand the portal’s capabilities into the commercial sector.
B2B & Guest Flows: Developed specialized payment processes and workflows for commercial clients and one-time guests.
UI Standardization: Performed internal audits to ensure visual consistency across diverse user views.
Executive Approvals: Facilitated design reviews to secure buy-in from key stakeholders and leadership.
4.
Enhancements
5 Months
System Evolution: Iterated on the Design System to incorporate new patterns discovered during the scaling phase.
Data Strategy: Led the research and selection of usability tools to establish a long-term, metric-driven design culture.
Compliance UX: Refined legal messaging and transparency within the payment process.
Team Enablement: Supported the Learning & Development team in creating training materials for Customer Service agents.
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