Dec 2021 - May 2022
The brief
Charlotte Tilbury (CT) brought me in as a product designer to lead the UX and UI for their brand-new iOS and Android app.
The vision was ambitious: not just another ecommerce experience – something unique that would appeal to future customers: young people who weren’t yet buying the products but loved the brand.
My role
Contract Product Designer
Responsible for all UX and UI for the new app
Collaborated with researchers, developers, product managers and senior leadership
Took initiative in shaping strategic direction based on user insight
A couple of ideas for the 'shop' tab, showing viewport cut-off points
A bold idea - but was it right?
The pitch deck revolved around a standout concept — something that, if successful, could set the app apart from typical beauty brand offerings. My NDA prevents me from going into further detail but I can say that it was the feature I was most excited to work on.
I was also a little concerned. There was some evidence that this feature could solve a real user need, but it was anecdotal. The last thing I wanted was the central innovation sitting in the bottom tab bar, unloved and gathering virtual dust.
As a contractor, I admit that I did wrestle with the question: should I just design what’s been asked? This was during the lockdown of Christmas 2021 so it was especially hard to gauge my approach while sat at home, limited to using Zoom to get to know my new colleagues.
Ultimately, though, I felt a responsibility to explore the idea in more depth before committing fully.
Getting to know the users
I worked with our UX researcher to run a series of lightweight surveys – not to prove or disprove anything, but to understand our audience better. We surveyed two groups:
Existing CT customers
Followers on Instagram – the future users we especially wanted to reach
We asked about what they valued, what they used other beauty apps for, and what they’d be most excited to see in a Charlotte Tilbury app.
The surprise in the data
The signals that came back could not have been clearer. Questions relating to the planned concept revealed a distinct lack of interest.
This didn't prove anything definitively – users aren’t great at predicting how they’ll feel about future features. People don't know what they want until they see it for real.
However, an open-ended question in the survey revealed what users were genuinely clamouring for: makeup tutorials. Dozens of responses asked for how-tos, tips and inspiration. This wasn’t something that was even present in the original plan.
It raised a fundamental question: were we solving for what we hoped users wanted or what they actually needed?
The pivot
The Head of Product Design took the insights straight to the CTO, who was the app's key sponsor. We now had a challenge - with the launch date looming, how should we respond to what users said?
My suggestion: let video tutorials become the centrepiece of the app's first iteration. CT already had a diverse network of makeup artists (MUAs) covering all skin types. The brand was uniquely positioned to provide a constant stream of the exact content users wanted.
We could build the beginnings of a rich tutorial library into the app from day one and use that as the foundation for more ambitious plans. If not, we’d still be delivering high-value content.
This was a chance to explore the original idea without betting reputations on it.
Collaborating to build a leaner, smarter v1
Solution sketch from a workshop attendee
Designing the experience
While the plans pivoted, there was still a full app to design. I found myself discussing product strategy one day and deciding how many pixels to put between product cards the next.
App structure (IA): the goal here was to balance user expectations with the surfacing of an exciting new feature. I kept the navigation familiar – ‘Shop’, ‘Bag’, and ‘Account’ sat exactly where users would be used to finding them. But the secret sauce got its own tab, labelled 'How to', in the bottom nav. Given the survey feedback, I was confident that users would be drawn to explore this. Tutorials would also be featured heavily on the home feed to increase the chance of discovery.
Ecommerce flows: I drew on experience from my previous role to shape the product listings, ensuring that both products and sub-categories were visible at each step, to guide the user through the catalogue without overwhelming. I applied platform guidelines (Apple HIG and Android’s Material Design) to keep the experience consistent with what users expected and make it efficient for devs to deliver within the project timeline.
Visual design: I had to adapt the existing digital style for the new app environment. Animations, transitions and aesthetics were refined to feel at home on iOS and Android rather than simply imported from the website.
Usability testing: I had to be careful with this, because CT didn't want its app plans to leak ahead of launch. I went with de-branded prototypes that focused only on the things I wanted to test so we didn't disclose information to competitors.
Production-ready UI spec for product cards
The result
A few months after I left the project, the app launched, with tutorials as a core feature.
30-day retention rate: 21% (industry average ~5%)
App Store ratings: 4.9⭐️ (iOS) and 4.8⭐️ (Android)
Users loved the content-first approach and the platform is now well-positioned to evolve over time, based on real usage patterns.
Reflections
I’m proud of how the team navigated this pivot together. The user research wasn't used to shoot down innovative ideas but it did help us slow down, listen, and rethink our assumptions before we overcommitted.
As a contractor, I wasn’t expected to shape the strategy. But I asked some careful questions, looked for evidence, and helped the team change track to a different path.