Rameen Ghafoor

🧭 Project Overview​

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The platform supports licensed businesses ordering excise stamps for products like:

• Alcohol, Soda, Tobacco, Water, Textiles

• Split by Domestic and Imported classification

The system required:

• Clear product categorization

• Multi-step ordering flow with live pricing

• Quantity validation with unit/coil structure

• Support for both mobile and desktop use cases

 

👤 My Role

 

As the Product Designer, I worked directly with:

• Backend/Frontend Engineers

• Security & Compliance Specialists

• CTO & other Project Stakeholders

• QA

I was responsible for:

• Product selection experience

• Quantity input and live pricing logic

• Cart management

• Registration and order flow

• User story writing and hand-off to developers

• Conducting user interviews

• Create demo videos for clients with voice-overs

• Creating prototypes from the ideation phase to the testing phase.

• Talking to clients

• Collaboration across teams like developers, QA, leadership and customers

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🔧 Tools

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• Adobe XD

• Atlassian

• Aha

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🧩 Key Design Challenges

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• Prevent user errors when calculating quantity vs pricing

• Clarify the differences between domestic and imported stamps

• Maintain clarity for high-stakes, regulatory-based transactions

• Make the entire flow feel responsive and progressive without overwhelming the user

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🧠 UX Goals

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• Simple and visual product selection

• Auto-calculated price and stamp totals

• Persistent cart for review and editing

• Streamlined mobile ordering experience

• Visual clarity between product types and sources

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🔍 My Process & Contribution

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1. Understanding the Workflow & Stakeholder Goals

I began by working closely with product managers and implementation teams to understand how excise stamp orders are created, regulated, and processed. Being part of the client-facing meeting and directly gathering requirements from them helped a lot.
I focused on:

• The typical user journey (from login to order submission)

• What information users needed at each step (e.g. price per coil, stamp totals, suppliers)

• Common errors and delays in the previous system

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2. Mapping the Ordering Lifecycle

I diagrammed the full order flow to identify friction points and UI dependencies: User login → Registration (if new) → Product category selection → Quantity input → Cart review → Order submission

This flow helped me plan a step-based UX model with persistent state (e.g. “ordered stamps” sidebar/cart).

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3. Wireframing Core Interactions

Designed low-fidelity wireframes of:

• Product selection cards (domestic/imported differentiation)

• Quantity panels with dropdowns for coil size and units

• A persistent cart showing total stamps and pricing

• Iterated on whether modal vs inline interactions worked better for ordering

• Created mobile-first wireframes to ensure usability in the field

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4. Designing Responsive UI Components

I built the UI components around:

• Visual recognition: Illustrated product tiles for fast selection

• Error prevention: Required fields, locked buttons, inline totals

• Adaptive layout: Multi-column grid on desktop, stacked flow on mobile

• Cart behavior: Real-time updates with delete/edit options

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5. Feedback & Iteration

After initial rollout:

• We received feedback from test users about visibility of pricing and edit controls

• I refined the cart UI to better surface totals and coil breakdowns

• Adjusted contrast and spacing on mobile for faster tap targets and scroll control

• Prioritized clarity of labels for stamp types and supplier selection

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6. Delivery & QA Support

 

• Finalized design handoff via Adobe XD, with clear naming and component nesting

• Worked with devs to translate quantity logic into usable frontend validation

• Supported QA in testing device-specific edge cases (cart persistence, edit button overlap, validation limits)

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🔍 Key Insights​

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1. Persistent Cart for High-Volume Orders

Challenge (user pain):
Manufacturers placing bulk orders needed to keep track of stamp quantities and costs while browsing products. In earlier systems, users lost visibility of their selections or had to switch screens to review their cart, which led to errors and order abandonment.

• Manufacturers frequently miscalculated order totals because the system only showed final prices at the very end. This created surprises, errors, and sometimes invalid submissions that required correction by support staff.

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📊 Results & Feedback

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• Increased order success rate by ~28%

• Significantly reduced order errors and pricing miscalculations

• Helpdesk load decreased due to improved input clarity

• Cart redesign improved conversion on mobile devices

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💡 Learnings & Reflections

 

• Live feedback loops (like total price and stamp count) drastically improve decision confidence

• Visual content (images, categories) builds trust for transactional tasks

• A simplified, responsive UI can handle complex regulatory processes when paired with strong defaults and validation

• If I could iterate:

  • I’d add inline help for coil/stamp math

  • Provide saved draft orders for repeat workflows

  • Introduce onboarding for new user types