Fabio Fodaro | Digital Design

Ten platforms management

Situation

Ten lifestyle group, 2019-2025

UX Lead

UI Lead

Design Lead

Team Leader

Ten, a global lifestyle and travel concierge service, operates a white-label platform serving 40+ clients with 350 instances across 26 languages. As the Lead UX designer, later promoted to Director of UX, I inherited a platform with established creative elements and significant challenges:

  • Scaling the platform to accommodate rapid growth
  • Managing multiple client requests while aligning with business goals
  • Ensuring strict accessibility standards across all instances
  • Adapting UI components to fit diverse languages
  • Transforming the platform to be mobile-first
  • Personalise each instance of the platform to relevant cultural nuances

Tasks

As the UX Lead for Ten platforms, my key tasks included:

  1. Leading UX, UI, and graphic design teams to create a cohesive user experience across 350 platform instances in 26 languages.
  2. Conducting user research to inform strategic decisions and drive product improvements.
  3. Collaborating with cross-functional teams to streamline processes and align design with business goals.
  4. Developing and implementing a customization system for clients to align the platform with their brand guidelines.
  5. Ensuring strict accessibility standards across all platform instances, working to improve the accessibility score significantly.
  6. Creating a scalable design system to accommodate rapid growth and multiple client needs.
  7. Implementing performance measurement tools to track the success of various services.
  8. Preparing the platform for significant scale-up, including enhancing mobile access and integration capabilities.
  9. Overseeing the transformation of the platform to be mobile-first, addressing the changing needs of users.
  10. Establishing a unified design language and toolkit to streamline collaboration between designers, developers, and other team members.
Mastercard was a key focus for Ten. We collaborated with them to create a distinct look and feel for their platform, where I took the lead in connecting the branding teams throughout the process.
Creating comprehensive customization documentation was essential for aligning client requests with our platform. This approach significantly reduced the need for back-and-forth communication with clients, ultimately saving valuable time and streamlining the process.

Actions

During my 6 years at Ten I took several key actions to address the challenges, improving on the user experience and the efficiency of the platform management:

  1. Implemented a unified design system
    • Created a flexible, component-based design system using atomic design principles
    • Developed reusable components to maintain consistency while saving development time
    • Utilized UXPin Merge for efficient theme-switching and prototyping with code components
  2. Enhanced accessibility and responsiveness
    • Improved the platform’s accessibility score (WCAG, ADA) from 45 to 98
    • Implemented responsive design techniques to adapt interfaces to various screen sizes
    • Used flexible grids and fluid layouts to adjust dynamically to different screen sizes
  3. Streamlined the design-to-development process
    • Established Figma as the single source of truth for design assets
    • Implemented Zeplin for efficient handoff to development teams
    • Created a code repository for components to ensure consistency across the platform
  4. Conducted comprehensive user research
    • Gathered insights to inform strategic decisions and drive product improvements
    • Established InMoment as a centralized platform for sharing customer insights across the business
  5. Developed the Ten Delivery Process framework
    • Created a standardized approach to ensure all teams followed best practices
    • Improved cross-team collaboration and visibility throughout the development process
  6. Implemented AI-driven content production
    • Developed a process for creating travel guides using AI assistance
    • Reduced production time from 3 days to 1 hour per language
  7. Led the mobile-first transformation
    • Introduced a “mobile first” approach across different teams, including business stakeholders
    • Worked with Tech leader to seamlessly add the transformation work in the BAU pipeline
    • Updated pattern library to meet the goal, and helped creating a unified repository with developers

These actions significantly improved the platform’s usability, scalability, and efficiency, leading to substantial growth in users and client satisfaction.

An overview of the end-to-end production process, designed around best practices and specifically tailored to leverage Ten’s resources and expertise. Two designers were able to provide over 50+screens a month to over 60 developers, without any delay.
My teams managed the initial client engagement for production, guiding them from the pitch and prototyping stages to supporting sales in contract closure, as well as directing branding efforts and client launches.
I oversaw user research, conducting monthly sessions to gain insights into the platform’s usability and content effectiveness. This work ensured we continuously improved the user experience based on real user feedback.
Mapping user journeys for each service was crucial in prioritizing platform improvements and ensuring that the most significant upgrades were addressed first.

Results

Under my leadership, Ten achieved significant growth and improvements:

  • User base expanded from 50,000 to over 500,000 members globaly
  • NPS score stabilized around 75, with peaks of 86 in Brazil
  • Client growth increased by 50%, with client NPS consistently above 80%
  • The platform is now fully prepared for ecosystem scale-up beyond the digital platform
  • The ticketing module became a finalist for the 2025 Ticketing Awards

This case study demonstrates my ability to lead complex UX projects, drive significant improvements in user experience and accessibility, and contribute to substantial business growth in a multi-client, multi-language environment.

During my 7 years at Ten, I had the opportunity to collaborate with leading banks, financial institutions, and luxury clients, consistently ensuring effective communication and a streamlined production process.