Background

Localised is a tech company that helps global brands launch and operate localised e-commerce experiences in international markets. Founded in 2018 with backing from entrepreneur Peter Jones (BBC’s Dragons’ Den), the company set out to build a scalable, end-to-end platform that could adapt seamlessly to different countries, currencies and customer needs.

My Role

Product Design Lead

Led the design of the core e-commerce platform, starting with a localised checkout system that supported multiple currencies, languages, and payment methods.

Design System Architect

Created a global template and component system that enabled rapid brand customisation and consistency across markets.

Platform Designer & UX Director

Designed the internal tool Houston for managing products and content and later oversaw UX across teams as Director of UX.

Process

Research

Investigated international e-commerce patterns, localisation challenges, and user behaviours across regions.

Ideation & Design

Created wireframes, prototypes, and a modular design system for both customer-facing and internal tools.

Testing & Delivery:

Conducted usability testing to validate checkout flows, template flexibility, and backend usability and with worked developers to implement designs, maintain quality and evolve the system at scale.

Challenges & Trade-offs

Balancing Flexibility with Consistency

Designing a white-label system meant building templates and components that could adapt to many brand styles without fragmenting the design. I had to strike a careful balance between flexibility for customization and maintaining a coherent, scalable system.

Localisation Complexity

Supporting multiple languages, currencies, and payment types introduced layout and logic challenges—especially for right-to-left languages and region-specific formats. I learned the importance of designing truly international-first systems, not just retrofitting for global needs.

Building While Scaling

As the company grew rapidly, new teams needed to use and contribute to the system. Designing while also creating documentation, governance, and onboarding processes taught me how to scale design systems alongside a growing product and team.

Outcomes

Accelerated Market Launches

The global template and design system reduced time-to-market for new brand rollouts from several weeks to just a few days.

System Adoption Across Teams

The design system was adopted company-wide, enabling product, engineering, and content teams to build and localise storefronts efficiently.

Team Enablement

Designers and content creators were able to work more independently, thanks to clear templates and component guidelines—freeing up design leadership to focus on product evolution.

Localised - Global Style System and Houston Ecommerce Management System

Jul 2021

Platform Design

Problem Statement

Localised needed a flexible, white-label e-commerce platform that could scale globally—supporting multiple languages, currencies and payment methods—while maintaining brand consistency and a seamless user experience. Without a robust design system, delivering this at scale was unsustainable.

Background

My Role

Process

Challenges & Trade-offs

Outcomes