Digital Science
Designing and refining the user experience, from a scalable design system to high-impact conversion optimisations.
For the past two years at Digital Science, I’ve been deeply involved in shaping the user experience of Overleaf, a collaborative LaTeX editor used by millions worldwide. My work has spanned across multiple areas, from establishing and maintaining a design system to crafting high-impact conversion rate optimisation designs. I’ve led key initiatives in branding and marketing design, contributed to a major website redesign, and reimagined the Overleaf editor and dashboard to enhance usability and functionality. Whether refining the product experience or optimising business-critical pages, my focus has always been on creating intuitive, user-friendly, and visually cohesive designs that drive both engagement and growth.
Before
After
Rebranding and website redesign
Leading Overleaf’s rebrand and website redesign was a fast-paced, high-stakes challenge—balancing strong stakeholder opinions with design decisions that aligned with business goals and user needs. Running both projects simultaneously, I worked across multiple departments to gather feedback, manage expectations, and drive the vision forward within a tight timeframe.
To ground the work in real insights, I conducted research to understand how users perceived the brand and assessed the website’s effectiveness in terms of comprehension and conversion. This included qualitative studies on brand perception, usability testing to identify pain points in the website’s information architecture and messaging, and analytics deep dives to measure drop-off points.
Before
After
Once launched, we took a measured approach—gradually rolling out the redesign while monitoring key guardrail metrics. This allowed us to spot areas for improvement, make targeted optimisations, and ensure a seamless transition before a full rollout. The result? A refreshed, cohesive brand and website experience that better communicates Overleaf’s value while driving engagement and conversions.
Design system
When I joined Overleaf, there was no design system in place—just a collection of ad-hoc styles and components. Alongside a fellow designer who started at the same time, we built the design system from the ground up, ensuring it was scalable, accessible, and properly integrated into the codebase. Rather than just a UI library, we created a true design system—one that provided consistency across the product while giving teams the flexibility to adapt and grow.
We established a robust foundation, covering everything from typography, colour, and spacing tokens to reusable components, design patterns, and even a dedicated marketing design kit for website and digital marketing material. More than just documentation, this system became a living part of our design and development workflow, making it easier for teams to build and iterate with confidence.
A design system is never “done”—it requires ongoing maintenance, governance, and expansion to meet new product and marketing needs. Whether refining existing components, introducing new patterns, or ensuring accessibility best practices are met, I continue to evolve the system to support Overleaf’s growth while keeping the experience cohesive and user-friendly.
Editor and dashboard redesign
Overleaf’s editor is the heart of the product—the place where millions of users collaborate, write, and publish academic documents. But over time, the editor interface had become increasingly rigid. It wasn’t built with scalability in mind, and it posed significant limitations whenever we wanted to introduce new features or improve existing ones. I led a major redesign of the editor, aiming to create a more flexible, user-focused interface that could support both evolving user needs and Overleaf’s long-term growth.
The project began with a deep dive into understanding the current state of the editor. I mapped user flows, reviewed interaction patterns, and collaborated with the engineering and product teams to identify where the design was holding us back. We quickly discovered that the layout and structure made it difficult to add new features without cluttering the interface or disrupting key user workflows. This insight led to a more systematic approach to surfacing information—redefining how we think about visibility, context, and user control inside the editor.
One of the key principles driving the redesign was creating a modular and extensible framework. We wanted a system that could support new functionality without requiring us to rethink the layout every time. This meant revisiting everything—from the placement of key tools and navigation, to how we manage side panels, context menus, and in-editor notifications. Throughout the process, I worked closely with users and internal teams to validate concepts and ensure our direction made sense in both day-to-day usage and more advanced workflows.
Dashboard
Editor
Before
After
In parallel, I also led a full redesign of the Overleaf dashboard—the landing and navigation space that connects users to their projects, templates, and collaborators. While the dashboard redesign was scoped to align with the new editor experience, it had a broader purpose as well: to serve as a design foundation for consistency across all Digital Science products. This required close collaboration with teams working on other products in the portfolio to develop a shared design language that could scale across multiple applications.
The dashboard redesign focused on simplifying navigation, clarifying hierarchy, and introducing more flexibility in how users manage their work. We developed new patterns for layout, responsive design, and reusable components that not only improved usability in Overleaf but also became the basis for shared libraries across the Digital Science suite. This cross-product consistency is particularly valuable for institutional users who work across multiple tools, providing a smoother and more coherent user experience.
Rolling out both redesigns required a strategic and measured approach. We released updates incrementally, gathering user feedback and performance data along the way. This allowed us to identify and resolve usability issues before committing to a full rollout. The impact was immediately noticeable: users reported improved clarity and ease of use, and internal teams found it much easier to build on top of the new frameworks.
Together, the editor and dashboard redesigns represent a foundational shift for Overleaf—not just in how the product looks, but in how it evolves. We’ve moved from a constrained, brittle interface to a flexible and scalable design system that supports innovation, collaboration, and long-term product vision. And by aligning with Digital Science’s broader design strategy, we’ve helped lay the groundwork for a more unified experience across their entire product ecosystem.
Contact
Currently doing product design at Digital Science.
Open to new opportunities.