Vision Direct

Vision Direct needed an intuitive website that catered to customers of all abilities, allowing them to purchase products and book medical appointments with ease — supporting retention and opening up opportunities to upsell. My role was to audit and adapt the existing design system inherited from parent company EssilorLuxottica following their merger, creating new components and styles tailored to an e-commerce context while working closely with lead developers, project managers and stakeholders. The core challenge was that the supplied design system had been built for small boutique opticians rather than a large online retailer, and developers had already begun building the new site using this "one size fits all" kit without design input. Convincing the team to pause production was a tough ask as a contractor, but with the backing of the head front-end developer, we used the inherited system as a foundation and built out a more robust, e-commerce–appropriate design system on top. The project demanded a great deal of diplomacy and compromise across design, development and stakeholder groups. Over a challenging eight months I gained valuable experience in negotiation, stakeholder management, and collaborating closely with developers to understand their processes and ways of working.