Case study · UNIFY · Project Sherlock · Yubi · 2023 to 2025

NPS 1.7 to 8.23.

A data-backed audit of 500+ screens, then a two-year unification programme across five brands. Drop-offs fell from 87% to 34.7%, and NPS climbed from 1.7 to 8.23.

My roleDirector of Design · Programme lead
TeamDesign leads across 5 brands · analytics · engineering
MethodProject Sherlock · 500+ screens audited
Timeline2023 to 2025 · 2 years
ScopeUX audit · Standardisation · Design governance
OutcomeNPS 8.23 · 92% experience unified
01 · The business situation
Rational local decisions, irrational global experience.

Yubi grew fast, partly by acquisition, and every product team made sensible choices in isolation. The result for users moving between products was an irrational whole: different navigation, different tables, different language for the same concepts.

The NPS of 1.7 was not mysterious. Drop-offs sat at 87%. Users were confused, stakeholders were frustrated, and engineering was fixing the same UI bug in six products at once.

02 · The strategy · Sherlock
Diagnose before you design.
Sherlock didn’t discover problems. It named them. Naming a problem precisely is the first step to owning it.

Project Sherlock was a data-backed audit before a single fix: heatmaps, analytics, session recordings, and automated screenshot mapping across every product. 500+ screens catalogued. Every navigation pattern, filter placement, table layout, and card style named and compared.

Precision was the point. A vague sense that things are inconsistent moves nobody. A named, numbered catalogue of exactly what diverges, and what it costs, moves everyone.

03 · The team, and how I ran it
Five brands, one operating rhythm.

UNIFY was deliberately not a central takeover. I ran it through the design leads of each brand, with a shared review cadence and a governance gate: nothing shipped without being checked against UNIFY standards.

The design language we standardised was written to feel like an evolution of each product’s identity, not an occupation. That framing is why five teams adopted it rather than resisted it. A unified accessibility framework brought WCAG AA compliance to every core flow along the way.

04 · The programme
Dismantling four years of fragmentation, systematically.
01Audit everything500+ screens mapped with data, not opinion. The catalogue became the shared, undeniable baseline.
02Standardise the spineNavigation, tables, filters, layouts, and loading states unified first, because they carry every journey.
03Evolve, don’t eraseEach brand kept its identity. The shared language read as an upgrade, which is why it was adopted.
04Govern the gateEvery new design reviewed against UNIFY standards before shipping, so the fragmentation never regrows.
05 · Business outcome
Users finally recognised where they were.
8.23NPS, from 1.7
34.7%Drop-offs, from 87%
92%Product experience unified
5Brands on one language

Drop-offs fell from 87% to 34.7%. NPS climbed from 1.7 to 8.23. 92% of the product experience now runs on shared patterns. The number that mattered most was quieter: users moving between Yubi products stopped feeling like they had left the building.

06 · What I carry forward
Most design problems are leadership problems wearing a UI.

Nobody at Yubi wanted an inconsistent experience. It happened anyway, one reasonable local decision at a time. Fixing it took a programme, a rhythm, and a gate, which is to say, it took leadership, not just design.

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