Challenge
The ordering flow had evolved organically over time. Users faced long forms, inconsistent UI patterns, limited mobile optimization and weak trust signals during the most critical decision-making moments.
I recommend viewing case studies in landscape orientation.
GRABR - Building Trust in Cross-Border Commerce
Joining Grabr as a Product Designer, I helped redesign the core commerce experience for a marketplace connecting buyers with international travelers. My responsibility extended beyond interface design: I worked on reducing friction throughout the order journey, increasing user trust, establishing a scalable design system, and improving operational efficiency through internal products.
- role
- Product Designer
- domain
- Cross-border marketplace
- focus
- Product Strategy, Checkout, Trust, Design Systems
- markets
- Brazil, Argentina, Russia
- users
- Buyers, travelers, operations
- scope
- End-to-end commerce experience
Solution
Instead of redesigning individual screens, we restructured the entire service around a single principle: reduce uncertainty before asking users for commitment. Every interaction - from checkout to payment - was redesigned to increase clarity, transparency and confidence.
PRODUCT STRATEGY
Trust is a product strategy, not a visual feature.
The redesign focused on four strategic objectives: reduce cognitive load during order creation, increase confidence before payment, build reusable product foundations instead of one-off solutions, and align customer-facing experiences with internal operational workflows. The product direction treated trust as a system of decisions across checkout architecture, pricing transparency, traveler credibility, payment clarity and operational tooling.
CORE PRODUCT DECISIONS
Reusable foundations instead of isolated redesigns.
The work connected customer-facing commerce improvements with internal product infrastructure, creating a more scalable base for future marketplace growth.
Rebuilding Checkout Architecture
Reorganized a fragmented ordering process into a progressive, e-commerce-inspired flow with clearer information hierarchy and predictable decision points.
Designing for Trust
Introduced contextual trust signals including verified travelers, transparent pricing, delivery guarantees, installment information and social proof to reduce perceived risk.
Mobile-first Commerce
Created adaptive components and responsive patterns prioritizing mobile traffic while maintaining consistency across platforms.
Design System as Product Infrastructure
Migrated legacy Sketch assets into a centralized Figma design system, enabling scalable component reuse, faster delivery and stronger visual consistency.
Internal Platform
Designed inventory and catalog management tools that allowed marketing and operations teams to create collections without engineering involvement, reducing operational bottlenecks.
DESIGN CONSTRAINTS
Designing for cross-border trust and operational scale.
The experience had to account for localized payments, fraud perception, growing product complexity, mobile usage growth and operational needs behind the marketplace. We also relied on a data-driven working rhythm: there was no dedicated product manager, so the team collectively split priorities between analytics, business development, design and engineering. Developers contributed important technical vision, and this close collaboration helped the platform evolve efficiently without losing product focus.
ConstraintDesign Response
Cross-border paymentsLocalized payment patterns and transparent pricing
High fraud perceptionLayered trust signals throughout checkout
Growing product complexityUnified design language through a design system
Mobile usage growthMobile-first responsive architecture
Operational scaleReusable internal tooling
BUSINESS IMPACT
- Lower cognitive load throughout checkout.
- Higher confidence before payment.
- Consistent cross-platform purchasing experience.
- Shared design system accelerated delivery.
- Internal tooling reduced manual operational work.
- Reusable components simplified future product development.
- Established scalable UX foundations instead of isolated redesigns.
- Unified customer and internal product experiences under one design language.
Trust is a product strategy, not a visual feature.
Great commerce UX minimizes uncertainty before asking for commitment.
Design systems become valuable only when they accelerate product delivery.
Internal products deserve the same design quality as customer-facing experiences.
Scalable product thinking creates more long-term value than isolated interface improvements.
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Let's Connect
Feel free to contact me if having any questions.
I'm available for new projects or just for chatting.
Herman Lewandowsky, 2026