2021 - 2023
Product Design · UX/UI · Design Systems · Native App · Responsive Web · Cross-team Collaboration
My role
As Product Designer at RTL, I worked across RTL Nieuws, RTL Boulevard and RTL Programma’s, combining hands-on product design with design-system ownership and cross-team collaboration.
I led the redesign of RTL Nieuws across responsive web and native app, worked closely with UX researchers, Product Owners, editorial teams and iOS, Android and web developers, and coached junior designers.
A major part of my role was creating a scalable multibrand design system that allowed multiple RTL products to share the same foundations, patterns and components while retaining their own visual identity.
Impact
• Created a shared multibrand design system for RTL Nieuws, RTL Boulevard and other digital RTL products.
• Helped bring several separate app experiences together into one native iOS and Android product.
• Designed for an existing RTL Nieuws app audience of approximately one million unique users.
• Reduced duplication by giving design and development a shared set of components, patterns and guidelines.
• Helped product, editorial and development teams work from clearer shared design principles.
• Coached junior designers and contributed to improving design quality across the team.
How I worked
I worked closely with Product Owners, UX researchers, stakeholders, editorial teams and development throughout the process.
Research and user insights were translated into user journeys, flows, interaction patterns and high-fidelity designs. I stayed involved through implementation, discussing details and trade-offs directly with iOS, Android and web developers.
We worked in Scrum, with accessibility as an important part of the design process. With RTL Nieuws serving a very broad audience, WCAG and inclusive design were considered throughout the product and design system.
The redesign
RTL wanted its digital products to align more closely with the wider RTL brand while creating a more coherent experience across its different platforms.
The redesign covered both the visual identity and the product experience across web and app. Rather than treating branding as a separate layer, we translated the new direction into reusable interface patterns, components and interaction principles.
The goal was to create a recognisable RTL experience while still leaving enough flexibility for individual brands and different types of content.
This work became the foundation for both the redesigned products and the multibrand design system.
Design system
RTL operated several digital products with overlapping functionality but different brands, including RTL Nieuws, RTL Boulevard and RTL Programma’s.
Maintaining separate patterns and components for every product would create unnecessary duplication and make it harder for design and development teams to work consistently. I therefore set up the design system in Figma as a scalable multibrand system.
I created a token-based foundation for shared design decisions such as colour, typography, spacing and other visual properties.
Reusable components, variants and states were designed so that the same underlying product patterns could support different RTL brands without maintaining completely separate component libraries.
This created a clear separation between shared product behaviour and brand-specific expression.
The system helped:
• reduce duplicated design work;
• improve consistency across products;
• make new patterns easier to scale;
• create a shared language between design and development;
allow individual RTL brands to retain their own identity.
Together with developers, I documented components, patterns, behaviour and usage guidelines in Confluence.
This created a shared reference for design and development and helped translate the Figma system into its technical implementation across web, iOS and Android.
Product design
After the COVID-19 period, research showed changes in how people wanted to consume news. Users were looking for a broader and more digestible experience, with more room for lighter and entertainment-focused content alongside traditional news.
At the same time, RTL was maintaining several separate app experiences.
From both a user and product perspective, there was an opportunity to create a more coherent experience by bringing RTL Nieuws, RTL Boulevard and other RTL content closer together.
We therefore moved towards one combined native app for iOS and Android.
Because the existing RTL Nieuws app already reached approximately one million unique users, it became the foundation for the new product. Users of the other RTL apps could then be moved towards this combined experience.
My work included defining user flows, navigation and interaction patterns, translating research into product decisions and designing the high-fidelity interface across the main journeys.
Throughout the process I worked closely with UX research, Product Owners, editorial stakeholders and developers to make sure the experience remained understandable despite the larger amount and variety of content.
Native App
For the native app, I worked on the experience across iOS and Android, from navigation and content discovery to article and programme experiences.
The challenge was to bring different types of RTL content together without losing the clarity people expected from RTL Nieuws.
The design system provided the shared foundation, while product patterns were adapted where necessary to the needs of mobile users and native platform behaviour.
I stayed closely involved with the iOS and Android teams during implementation to make sure interaction details, states and behaviour were translated correctly into the final product.
Responsive Web
Alongside the native app, I worked on the responsive RTL web experience.
The same product principles and design-system foundation needed to work across a much broader range of screen sizes, content types and user behaviours.
I designed responsive layouts and interaction patterns that could scale from mobile web to larger desktop experiences while staying consistent with the native products.
The shared system helped web and app teams work from the same underlying principles without forcing every platform into exactly the same solution.
