Rasayel - Big Picture
3 years of building Rasayel, a WhatsApp native platform for sales and customer support.
Overview
I started at Rasayel as a Senior Product Designer but ended up leading the platform team. Turns out when you're moving fast, going back and forth with engineers takes forever. So I just started coding the prototypes myself—way faster and the end result was better. Along the way I had to figure out the product roadmap, make strategic calls, and keep the engineering team aligned. We rebuilt the whole user experience and created proper design systems for a customer support platform used by thousands of businesses across the Middle East.
Role Evolution
The Challenge
Rasayel faced multiple interconnected challenges that were limiting growth and user adoption:
- Fragmented User Experience: Inconsistent interface patterns across different platform areas created confusion and reduced efficiency
- Scalability Issues: Rapid feature development without design system foundation led to technical debt and maintenance challenges
- Regional Complexity: Supporting Arabic RTL layouts and cultural nuances while maintaining global usability standards
- Performance Concerns: Heavy interfaces impacting user productivity, especially in high-volume support environments
Strategic Solution
Design System Foundation
Built a comprehensive design system from the ground up, including component libraries, design tokens, and documentation that supported both LTR and RTL layouts seamlessly.
User-Centered Redesign
Conducted extensive user research and usability testing to redesign core workflows, focusing on support agent efficiency and customer satisfaction metrics.
Performance Optimization
Implemented design patterns that reduced cognitive load and improved interface performance, resulting in faster task completion and reduced training time.
Cross-Platform Consistency
Established design standards that worked across web, mobile, and API integrations, ensuring consistent experience regardless of access point.
Solution in Action
Watch how the redesigned interface streamlines support workflows and improves agent efficiency through intuitive design patterns and optimized user flows.
Business Impact
The redesigned platform contributed to Rasayel's expansion into new markets and a significant increase in enterprise client acquisition.
Design Process
Research & Discovery
Conducted user interviews, analyzed support metrics, and performed competitive analysis to understand pain points and opportunities.
Strategic Planning
Developed design strategy aligned with business goals, created roadmaps, and established success metrics for the transformation.
System Design
Built comprehensive design system with components, patterns, and guidelines that supported rapid, consistent development.
Iterative Implementation
Rolled out changes incrementally, gathering feedback and refining based on real user behavior and business metrics.
Scale & Optimize
Established processes for ongoing optimization, team training, and system evolution to support continued growth.
Key Learnings
Cultural Design Considerations
Supporting RTL languages requires more than mirroring layouts - it demands understanding cultural communication patterns and visual hierarchy preferences.
Incremental Transformation
Large-scale design changes are most successful when implemented gradually, allowing users to adapt while maintaining business continuity.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Design system success depends heavily on strong partnerships with engineering, product, and customer success teams from the beginning.
Metrics-Driven Design
Combining qualitative user feedback with quantitative performance metrics provides the clearest path to impactful design decisions.