Serge Gutin

Launched in October 2022, the product exceeded expectations, averaging over 4,500 applications daily in the first three months. It is now considered a major revenue driver, with strong potential to expand to new partners. By embedding the experience in the Barclays App, we also opened up cost efficiencies and deeper user engagement.

This project marks a personal career milestone. As the Design Lead I developed UX strategy, liaised with Amazon’s design team, fostered cross-team alignment and built a user-first approach in a heavily regulated space. Its success has solidified Design’s place at the stakeholder table at Barclays.

1. Inception

The project began as a natural evolution of Barclays Partner Finance’s (BPF) collaboration with Amazon, following an earlier successful proposal for an instalment product. From the outset, I served as the key design liaison for BPF, navigating the complex dynamics between internal financial compliance and external retail demands. I worked on early prototypes to adapt existing account servicing for use in the Barclays app, laying the groundwork for what would become a scalable shopping credit line product.

2. Ideation

The core challenge was defining a product still abstract internally, in a way that made sense to users and was scalable to retailers. Amazon’s high UX standards (e.g., 1-click purchase) demanded lean, streamlined journeys, driving us to embed UX into the strategy. I initiated cross-functional collaboration, mapped early end-to-end flows, and embedded myself across multiple product teams. Iterative feedback from Amazon, combined with Barclays’ own constraints, made for a highly adaptive, design-led process - pushing UX into a more strategic role than usual within the organisation.

3. Creation

While the checkout integration was still under review, I focused on designing the in-app MVP for servicing the product. The challenge was making complex financial concepts (like credit limits) intuitive and user-friendly. I advocated for early collaboration with copywriters, integrating clear, testable messaging into design. I facilitated testing sessions and coordination across design, product, and compliance, balancing stakeholder needs with user clarity. My role evolved into design leadership, making UX a central, evidence-driven voice in decision-making.

4. Testing

I ran ten in-depth interviews with both Barclays and non-Barclays users. Key friction points emerged around early-stage messaging, especially at the point of selection and checkout. Many users hesitated due to confusion about reusability and commitment. However, the servicing experience within the Barclays app tested strongly - even among new users - validating much of the design direction and helping us course-correct the messaging in time for launch.

5. Iteration

Following testing, I led refinements to clarify proposition messaging and user flows. This visibility and domain knowledge led to my appointment as manager of one of our Component Libraries. I used this opportunity to share templates and enforce design consistency across Barclays teams. As with any live product, iteration didn’t stop at launch - I continued to refine the experience based on analytics and user feedback.

6. Collaboration

This project was deeply collaborative, requiring coordination with multiple product squads, legal teams and other designers. I facilitated remote workshops and fostered broader participation. I also adapted to developers’ workflows, ensuring clean specs handover. These soft skills helped us streamline delivery while building a shared language between disciplines.

(Please note: high quality assets sharing is not allowed by this particular employer.)

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1. Background

In early 2023, I was approached by the Loyalty & Rewards team to solve a visibility and scalability issue around exclusive Premier customer events. I used this as an opportunity to lead a cross-functional design initiative grounded in Design Thinking and experimentation. This opened space for rapid idea testing, helping stakeholders embrace iteration over perfection.

2. Design Sprint

I facilitated a remote, three-week design sprint (inspired by Google’s model) that involved stakeholders from across the business. Using FigJam and structured exercises like persona creation, experience mapping, and wireframing, we defined the core problem: Premier customers lacked a central, personalised, engaging platform for events. The sprint culminated in an interactive prototype and a delivery plan, approved within two weeks.

3. Technical Delivery

With just two months for build, I provided continuous design support to development, copy, analytics, and third-party teams. We worked in agile sprints with daily standups, solving issues around secure data capture, multi-channel scalability, and legacy brand integration. Design was actively involved in risk assessment, iteration, and efficient handovers.

4. Challenges & Solutions

Key blockers included:

- App release limitations → solved by deploying a demo micro-site.

- Data capture complexity → solved via cookies + third-party data mapping.

- No existing templates → I built the flow from scratch, creating a future-proof blueprint.

Despite shifting brand timelines, I adapted designs across systems and led UI delivery using Figma, supported by my team for faster output.

5. Testing & Analysis

User testing validated the solution’s UX. I then initiated both quantitative and qualitative post-launch analysis:

- Quant: Funnel tracking revealed drop-offs and validated key engagement points.

- Qual: Surveys uncovered user sentiment and pinpointed weaker screens.
Both sets of insights directly informed iteration and future planning.

6. Performance Metrics

- 7,824 customers reached

- 1,282 clicked through from 1,351 impressions

- 846 completed preference submission (87% of engaged users)

- CTR grew from 4% to 64% over 3 weeks

- “Coming Soon” content drew 40% (football) and 34% (tennis) interest

- 15–35% returned weekly to explore new content

These metrics confirmed strong appetite and willingness to engage, especially with relevant, tailored offers.

7. Hypotheses Validation

- Engagement: 17.3% CTR on event promo; optimal entry point placement.

- Willingness to share preferences: 87% submission rate post-click.

- Interest in future events: 30–40% chose “coming soon” categories.

- Retention: Weekly return behaviour inconclusive but promising.

Hypotheses around relevance, trust, and personalisation were largely validated, showing high potential for scale.

8. Outcomes & Key Findings

The project proved the value of design-led, cross-functional experimentation. We saw rapid delivery, strong engagement, and deep collaboration across new and existing teams. My team became a go-to for innovation pilots, and we reframed expectations around speed, ownership, and what design can deliver beyond UI. This is one of the fastest product rollouts in my Barclays tenure, with strategic impact across sponsorship, marketing, and analytics.

9. Launch

The platform debuted in July 2025, allowing all Premier customers to access and sign up to the full range of events and experiences, according to their personal preferences.

Discovery Phase (1+ months):
- User Research (survey, NPS + recommendations, user reviews)
- Project Plan (goals, pain points, prioritisation, scope, timeframe and success metrics)
- Data (analytics of the current app and of boohoo.com on mobile)

Design Phase (3-4 months):
- Competition research
- iOS / Material design guidelines
- User journey mapping (screens diagram), wireframing
- Interactive prototyping
- Speccing behaviour/functionality
- UI work (mocks), asset export via Zeplin

Implementation Phase (5-6 months):
- Upkeep and support of all provided specs/designs on both platforms
- Running weekly catchups with R&D for questions, clarifications, amends
- Raising and managing UX/UI tickets on Developers’ Kanban board, prioritising them and providing support

Prep for User Testing (1 week):
- Creating and managing user testing scenarios, NPS and SUS scores

Prep for Release (1-2 months):
- Post-release strategy & next phase planning

Result, post-launch:
- Significant increase in app ratings both on AppStore and GooglePlay (from 3.9 and 3.5 to 4.7 and 4, respectively)

Homepage Redesign – Thomas Cook

Of all my projects, the Homepage took top priority. The business needed a bold new face - visually refreshed, strategically smarter, and built to convert.

Goals were clear:
- Prioritise content based on business needs
- Gather analytics on current performance
- Run user research to uncover pain points and expectations
- Benchmark the competition
- Align stakeholders and plan execution cross-functionally

Problem
Beyond a visual facelift, the Homepage was expected to drive conversions - not just for flights, but for key services. With little usable data to start with, I kicked off fresh research to understand what users needed, what was broken, and what could work better.

Discovery
I led a mix of research methods (lab, guerrilla, remote testing) across the UK and Germany, surfacing key insights through collaborative workshops and peer feedback. Cross-team involvement was central - everyone from PMs to SEO contributed early and often.

Design
Wireframes were refined through iterative feedback and validated with users. One clear design direction emerged - promising improved conversion and user satisfaction - and gained consensus across teams. With back-end feasibility confirmed, we moved into build.

Outcome
Development had begun, and I was mid-way through high-fidelity design and the search/book flow when Thomas Cook shut down.

Reflections
Despite the abrupt end, this was one of the most rewarding projects I’ve led. The collaborative energy, adequate research deep-dive and business buy-in - all proved how powerful design can be when it's truly integrated.

Travel Classes are usually deemed important for customer segmentation of revenue in the airline industry, and Thomas Cook Airlines were no exception. The existing Classes and Fares pages that I was tasked to redesign, suffered from a number of problems, which the initial heuristic analysis uncovered:
- pages were lacking a consistent structure
- there was a sub-navigation on some (!) of them
- one page (Flex Fare) could only be accessed via the top menu, even though it was mentioned in other pages
- Copy was convoluted and content was confusing in places

The initial analysis resulted in a number of goals:
- Gather business requirements and prioritise content
- Focus on one of the classes (PLUS) in the research, to uncover its potential success with customers
- Get users’ feedback on the page, on its preferred structure, content and design
- Work with copywriters on improving the copy
- Research the competition, perform a landscape analysis
- Present the design plan according to the research; approve it with stakeholders and plan the execution with all relevant departments

Defining the problem
As with any project that comes without a clear brief, I started by working with the Product Owner on anchoring the goals (per above), defining the scope and the roadmap. This was also an opportunity for 2 other projects we had initiated simultaneously to be incorporated and tested. Those were:
1. The new design system (new UI language)
2. The new headless CMS (Kentico) we were transitioning to

So, we’ve agreed to tackle the problem of the unclear and complicated presentation of content (UX), while testing design directions for our new visual language (UI) and working closely with developers to ensure the new structure can be efficiently built as components in the new CMS.

Discovery phase
My plan for research focused on 3 main channels:
1. Current features of each class, with emphasis on Eco PLUS, as the business was unsure about it (the method I chose was a remote card sorting exercise with 50+ participants)
2. Gathering internal feedback from Management, Product, Development and Marketing, incorporating all in a new flow of wireframes, to be tested with real people (the method: guerilla testing in a library)
3. Collaborating with a UI Designer on the cosmetic layer to the wireframes, to be tested as well (the method: guerilla testing)

In parallel to the research insights that propelled us forward, I was making sure I document and share as much additional user data as possible, be that regarding demographics (to feed into our personas) or their preference of other airline businesses (competition).

Being aware of the problematic terminology the industry used, I put extra emphasis on uncovering the “human” language the people preferred, while testing face-to-face. This helped me convince Product to start changing the way we communicate information (e.g. “long-haul”, “short-haul” were changed to “over 7 hours”, “7 hours or under”; dimensions were added to baggage; sections were visually separated for clarity, etc.)

Design phase
While wireframing, I kept the two main goals in mind - consistency and clarity. Fortunately, this aligned with all internal feedback the departments left on each design iteration I put on the wall for them to see. The successful design we’ve agreed on meant customers could easily find what they’re looking for (regardless of their journey) and the information would not be partial and would make sense to them.

There was a sense of a greater responsibility working on this, since these pages were agreed to be the basis for:
- structure of all informative pages of the site
- the new design system
- the way we’d build components for the new CMS

After tweaking the UI according to the internal feedback, and taking the 3 versions of designs to people to test (both on desktop and mobile), we’ve come up with a clear winner that had an internal consensus with all the relevant departments as well.

Summary
This project was a good example of just how much clarity UX planning can bring into the business. A haphazard brief and lack of goals and success metrics meant it was up to UX to define the problem and uncover the benefits to the business, to plan, test and execute the improvements, and to collaborate with other departments, sharing data and gaining their requirements - all within a tight deadline.
As we got closer to the handover to development, I was particularly happy that the business understood that its needs here aligned with the customers’ needs.

3 phases of the product:

Mocks 1-8: The suggested design - A

Mock 9: The suggested design - B

Mocks 10-12: The chosen design - C

Mocks 13-26: The specced design - C

RaaS is Gigya's functionality, that "provides a complete, flexible set of online registration tools for integrating an end-to-end registration system across your web properties and mobile applications, complete with user validation, profile management and responsive design."

Redesigning it with its several flows and about 20 screens presented several challenges:
- responsiveness
- clean and clear new UI
- improved, engaging and fluid UX

Responsiveness was new to the product, so a clear and simple logic needed to be created, taking into account touch devices, breaking points, and overall cohesiveness across all platforms. The solution was 2 main breaking points, with the first one switching from a horizontal to a vertical layout (desktop to tablet), and the second one using the vertical layout at full width (mobile). 

I've deliberately chosen large, flat and minimalistic elements, to work well both in desktop and mobile touch devices, and to preserve the same look in any size. 

After development and QA, it was time to dive into the user research. Using Usertesting's tool, I've worked with several unbiased users, asking them to go through the flows, describing their experience. And although the product looked simple and the experience was somewhat expected, we've uncovered and improved quite a lot, consequently to the feedback.

The product was recently featured on Yahoo, along with its UI building tool (mock #2).

A social (community) app, after full stages of:
- prototyping & specs
- wireframing
and on-going work on:
- UI
- screens interaction and flows

A suggested app to help mountain bike enthusiasts, pros and amateur, organise, join and compete in custom races, while encouraging them to win and receive prizes from the brand.

The app's emphasis is on the social circle of the user. It traces the personal progress, while encouraging the user to share (brag, if you will:)

For a while now I've asked myself, as a frequent Facebook user on mobile: why does the app need to look so overwhelmingly web-like? Isn't there a specific flow of actions, beyond the latest post on the news feed? A clearer path to update on myself and others?

For some reason, it made more sense to me to always start with the user himself/herself.

After all, the platform is ego-centered, so why shouldn't the user start with a more "you are here" approach, before he/she wanders away into the jungle of friends' updates, posts from groups he/she barely remembers subscribing too, and, of course, the ads?

The project is another personal brainstorming of mine, as an endeavor to find answers to the questions that arise while I use the app.

I still need to tackle more screens, but I will try to be very selective, for I still believe that not everything the web Facebook has should be cramped into the user's hand.

A Music Player (iOS, iPhone5)

A fully responsive design of Gigya’s careers site.

A fully responsive design of a showcase site.
Final (mock 1) and Alternative versions (the rest of the mocks).

www.zipper.co.il

My idea for the smart home app I called “Homesapiens” is for it to work like magic: users can finally manage all their smart home devices in one intuitive place. A clean, interactive dashboard lets them control lights, thermostats, cameras, plugs, whatever they’ve got, without switching between a bunch of different apps. Energy use, automations, notifications - all clear, all in one spot. It feels empowering rather than overwhelming.

The problem:
Most smart home platforms today feel like a scattered mess. Each device might need its own app, its own setup, its own rules. People end up juggling logins, navigating clunky flows, and trying to remember which thing controls what. The big promise of smart homes, which is simplicity, gets buried under friction. Homesapiens was created to fix that. The goal was to bring everything together into one calm, unified experience.

Ideation and rationale:
I started with user interviews and competitor research to really dig into the pain points. The biggest ones were clunky onboarding, poor visibility into energy use, and no centralised way to manage things. From there I built personas, mapped out flows, and sketched early wireframes to test ideas quickly. I explored ways to visualise energy usage clearly and how to let AI assist users without taking control away. The key was giving people smart suggestions without making them feel boxed in.

Creation and impact:
Once the structure was solid, I moved into more polished mockups. I focused on a visual system that felt calm and approachable, with thoughtful color, typography, and accessibility built in. A clickable prototype gave me real feedback from users that matched my target audience. That input helped refine things. Energy insights became more prominent, suggestions felt more optional, and device categories were clearer. The final design felt sharp and usable.

In the end, Homesapiens would not just be another app. It is a tool that simplifies life, promotes awareness, and builds trust with users. It takes a mess of complexity and quietly organises it. And it is a great example of what thoughtful, research-led design can actually deliver.