Paismo Redesign

As the Senior Product Designer on Paismo’s enterprise redesign, I led the visual, structural, and experiential evolution of the product as it transitioned from a fast-growing HR platform into one built for mid-market and enterprise customers globally. My role spanned product UI, navigation systems, brand expression, and close cross-functional collaboration with Product and Marketing.

This case study documents how design decisions were driven by product strategy, user feedback, and Paismo’s north star metric: product-led growth measured through users activated per module—balancing familiarity for existing users with clarity, scalability, and credibility for international markets.

Stage 1: Aligning with Product Vision

Paismo had strong functional depth, but its interface leaned more towards a startup aesthetic—friendly and colorful, yet inconsistent for larger organizations evaluating the product for serious, long-term adoption. As the platform expanded across modules, users also struggled with orientation, discoverability, and hierarchy.

From a product standpoint, the goal was clear:

• Make Paismo feel enterprise-ready and globally credible

• Improve navigation clarity to increase module activation

• Maintain enough brand familiarity to avoid alienating existing users

Stage 2: Exploring a Minimal, Enterprise-First Direction

Initial Design Direction

The first design iteration leaned into a highly minimal, neutral interface:

• Reduced visual noise

• More whitespace and typographic hierarchy

• Subtle, structure-led layouts

User Feedback

Users responded positively to the clarity and calm of the new direction, describing it as clean, modern, and easier to focus on. However, long-time users noted that while the interface looked more mature, it felt less recognizably Paismo.

Stage 3: Reintroducing Brand Through Color & Contrast

To balance maturity with familiarity, I refined the visual system rather than reverting to heavy color usage:

• Retained purple as Paismo’s primary brand signal

• Introduced black to ground and complement the palette

• Used color strategically to support hierarchy and navigation

Sidebar Redesign

The sidebar became a key focus area:

• Clearly sectioned modules for faster scanning

• Improved hierarchy for an expanding feature set

• Strong contrast between navigation and content

This directly supported product goals by improving discoverability and reducing friction between first login and meaningful module activation.

Stage 4: Designing Paismo for Global Scale

As Paismo expanded into international markets, the design needed to communicate trust instantly—often before a demo or sales conversation.

Key considerations included:

• Neutral, globally familiar UI patterns

• Reduced reliance on culturally specific visual cues

• Clear, universal iconography and labeling

The refined system positioned Paismo alongside global HR platforms rather than regional tools, strengthening enterprise credibility.

Stage 5: Reducing Cognitive Load in High-Intent Actions

As the platform matured, I identified that some of Paismo’s most critical actions—such as creating a shift, configuring workflows, or setting up operational rules—were being handled through long, multi-step modals.

These modals were functionally dense and disruptive:

• They pulled users out of context

• Made it harder to reference underlying data

• Felt heavy and intimidating, especially for less tech-savvy HR users

Design Decision: Side Drawers Over Long Modals

I led the shift from full-screen and long modals to side drawers for high-intent, complex actions.

This approach allowed users to:

• Maintain visual context of the page they were working on

• Progress through complex actions in a more focused, linear way

• Treat configuration as an extension of their workflow rather than a separate task

Impact

• Reduced perceived effort for operational tasks like shift creation

• Improved task completion confidence without simplifying functionality

• Better aligned Paismo’s interaction patterns with enterprise SaaS expectations

This change complemented the redesigned navigation and visual system—further reducing friction between discovery, action, and activation.

Stage 6: Website Revamp & Marketing Alignment

I also led the design direction for the website revamp and worked closely with Marketing to ensure a consistent narrative across all customer touchpoints.

Product × Marketing Collaboration

• Aligned visual language between website and product

• Shaped website copy with Marketing to balance clarity, credibility, and conversion

• Structured module messaging to mirror in-product understanding

This ensured a seamless transition from first impression to in-product onboarding.