As the Product and Experience designer, I led the design of the Skills Discovery toolkit to help organisations engage in meaningful employee development. This B2B tool was built to turn key concepts in positive psychology into a simple, intuitive experience, designed for long-term engagement and client value.
Overview
Cappfinity are global leaders in measuring and developing potential in Talent Acquisition and Talent Management. Skills Discovery Toolkit is part of a new product offering launched by Cappfinity, focused on helping individuals and organisations unlock and apply their strengths. Building on Cappfinity’s reputation as a world leader in Talent Acquisition & Talent Management, the toolkit expands their offerings in the Talent Development space, with this product serving as the foundation.
Product and UX Designer
UX Audit, User Research, Usability Testing, Prototyping, UI Design, Interaction Design
Team
2 Engineers, Product Owner, 2 Content Strategists
Date
April 2024 - February 2025
Early feedback showed users felt more confident navigating, revisiting and using the content, signalling improvements in long-term product value
Reduced delivery complexity and content duplication, moving from fragmented tools to a single experience
Laid the foundation for a new product suite with strong upsell potential, supporting the company’s expansion into the talent development space
The Toolkit was built to fix a broken talent development journey
Where were Cappfinity headed?
Talent development at Cappfinity had grown ad hoc, leading to fragmented branding and delivery across PDFs, emails, and portals. This caused internal inefficiencies, limited upsell potential, and lowered the perceived value of our offerings.
Existing fragmented and redundant user flows
As Cappfinity expanded its talent development offering, internal tools and content had become fragmented, inconsistent, and difficult to maintain. We needed a scalable, unified solution that could improve delivery efficiency, strengthen brand perception across the talent lifecycle, and support long-term growth in this space.
The Skills Discovery Toolkit emerged as a strong proof of concept for the broader product suite. It was a natural extension of existing business initiatives.
While the business goal was clear, it wasn’t immediately obvious how users would engage with it, or what content would feel useful in practice.
Reframing the business goal through the lens of the user
Navigating research constraints
Limited direct access to end users
Compressed timeline due to other project demands
Securing buy-in for research due to limited value from previous attempts
Determined to not go into the design process blind, I had to get resourceful. I created and secured sign-off for the following research plan:
Client-facing
interviews
Capture common friction points, user feedback and delivery challenges through proxy users.
Audit of legacy
product
Identify structural and content weaknesses in the previous toolkit.
Review of existing user feedback
Identify patterns in user sentiment, feature requests, and drop-off points.
Auditing a legacy learning product
Key insights
- Internal teams needed a more structured and unified approach to content
- Some "power users" were screenshotting their entries to share with others
- Poor feedback interactions on responses and user actions
- Very content dense with minimal interactivity
- Users want to be able to revisit reflections
- They didn't see much value in one-off tasks
- Users noticed the content duplication/irrelevance caused by internal inefficiencies in delivery
How did I use the findings from the discovery phase in the rest of the design process?
Translating insights into design direction
Identifying opportunities
The first step to figuring what exactly I should do with them involved creating a sort of "opportunity-risk" map.
A snapshot of the process of mapping user insights onto risks and opportunities
From emerging patterns to behavioural modes
Opportunity mapping clarified what the solution needed to do, but behavioural modes showed how users would engage with it, helping us align design with real usage patterns.
Insights from stakeholders and qualitative data were brought together to define distinct modes of user engagement with the toolkit
These behavioural modes flowed directly from the research. They also mapped on to some degree to Goal Orientation Theory, helping to ground these observations in real behavioural psychology. This was the first step to thinking about how to implement the opportunities the research surfaced.
How I moved from research to the start of solution thinking through the lens of different modes of user enagement
Converging on an MVP
Understanding the technical constraints
Disconnected CMS platforms
Assessment and toolkit sat on separate systems so we couldn't integrate personalised assessment information
No shared user
identity
We couldn’t pass data across platforms so users had to create another account separate to the assessment platform
Disconnected
databases
We couldn’t trigger automated onboarding or
re-engagement flows
How might we create a modular, cohesive toolkit experience that adapts to different user behaviours and delivers long-term value despite the lack of shared user identity, automated flows, or integrated content systems
Designing with intention
To ensure alignment and clarity on what we were doing with toolkit, we collaboratively came up with 4 design principles. I then mapped each principle on to specific success metrics:
Design for Repeatable Reflection
Measuring Return & Reuse
Keep Interactions Lightweight
Measuring Clarity & Depth
Content-Led Relevance
Measuring Perceived Usefulness
Structure for Sustainability
Measuring Internal Efficiency
Value-to-effort mapping
A vital step towards converging on a design solution was mapping out our ideas based on the impact it would have on the user and how hard it would be to implement with the existing technical architecture in mind.
Using the tension between user value and technical feasibility to narrow focus, leaving us with a set of pilot features, defining our MVP
Features prioritised for the MVP chosen for technical feasibility, to maximise immediate value and easily scale for the future
How does it all come together?
We started by defining a set of modular, content-agnostic tools that could flex across topics. These gave the content team a clear framework to work within.
From there, the content team grouped these tools into three thematic learning areas. This work from the content team shaped most of the sitemap for the toolkit:
The final MVP sitemap for the Skills Discovery Toolkit platform
User journey mapping
From there, I began working on mapping out a couple of prospective user journeys for both first time and returning users.
A snapshot of the proposed user journeys for first time and returning visitors, focused on goals and emotions at each stage of the journey
Collaborating early and often to balance vision, user needs, and feasibility
Weekly Sessions
helped the team align on priorities and user flows, keeping momentum and reducing handoff friction
Real-Time Problem Solving
meant engineers could flag technical constraints early, allowing for faster iteration
Co Creation of Tools
between content and UX helped balance narrative clarity with interaction design
MVP Co-Definition
was a shared effort, enabling us to scope features based on both user needs and delivery feasibility
Building a modular, scalable toolkit
What guided my wireframing process
How all of the work we'd put in helped me define a framework that guided my design explorations, making things much more efficient and focused
Adapting one feature for different ways of engaging
Here’s an example of how this framework came to life in the process of designing the "Missions" experience:
An example of how I used the wireframing decision framework to make design decisions at the lo-mid fidelity wireframing stage for the Missions feature
Every part of this layout was intentionally shaped by our guiding inputs: user insights, behavioural modes, design principles, technical constraints, and the features we had prioritised.
I repeated this process across screens, seeking out feedback from engineers on feasibility and priorities from the PMs to refine these wireframes until they were in a good enough place to start applying styling.
Validating designs with usability testing
Prototype testing: early directional validation
Goal:
Validating foundational design logic, content and usability before build for efficiency.
- Users struggled to form a clear mental model of the toolkit
- Refine homepage copy to emphasise value of key features and tutorial; consistent page structure and modular layout
- Navigation was generally intuitive, but lacked reinforcement
- Include breadcrumbs, progress indicators for each section; persistent exit points; active state cues; reposition page heading and details
- Missions were perceived as one of the highest value areas of the toolkit
- Make Missions more prominent so users can access them quickly and understand their value upfront; more guidance to help users get the most out of them
- Uncertainty around positioning limited perceived value for non-managers
- Update approach to content for certain areas of the toolkit to broaden relevance
Fully functional and interactive prototypes of the branch track scenario videos and the bucket sort component built in Figma
Beta testing with live toolkit
Goal:
Validating improvements from previous phase and evaluate stability of components in live environment
Gathering feedback from live beta testing
- Broken buttons, browser compatibility issues, unreliable interactions
- Full interaction QA audit; rebuilt or simplified interactive components
- Task instructions and video-based activities still felt unclear
- Usage prompts before video content; repositioning task support information on screens
Design Showcase
What we delivered
After 10 months of collaboration, content and UX design and development reworks, we successfully delivered:
A live MVP with 6 modular, interactive tools
Documentation and recommendations for future integrations
A user experience designed to be revisited and part of the end users career development workflow
A style guide extracted from the learning branch of our design system, establishing a consistent foundation for future iterations
Interactive learning tools
To move beyond passive learning experiences like static PDFs, I designed reusable interactive components that encourage active engagement. These tools were designed to support better knowledge retention in a self-directed learning environment.
Responsive, Accessible Design
I designed the toolkit to be fully responsive across devices, ensuring accessibility and ease of use whether users were engaging on desktop, tablet, or mobile. Greater flexibility with how users can interact with toolkit facilitates repeat use by reducing friction.
Persistent, Revisitable Missions
Rather than one-and-done tasks, Missions allow users to reflect, save, and evolve their inputs over time. This directly solved the problem of users feeling unsure about how to use and reflect on their learnings from previous offerings.
Flexible Theming
We introduced both light and dark mode options to adapt to user needs and environments. This addressed accessibility and usability concerns. Offering flexible theming also contributed to creating a premium-feeling product experience.
Results
Early validation
While the toolkit has only recently launched, we've conducted early validation with internal client-facing teams and a pilot client cohort.
Key early signals
- Positive feedback on the clarity of the navigation and modular structure
- Strong perceived value in the ability to revisit and build on reflections
- Pilot users described the toolkit as a noticeable improvement in ease of use compared to previous offerings
UX Outcomes
- Supported both light and deep engagement through flexible interaction models
- Early feedback showed users felt more confident navigating and returning to content
Organisational Impact
- Showcased efficiency of highly collaborative process
- Built modularly, reducing overhead for content and tech teams
- Created shared language and process for future toolkit design
Strategic Value
- Toolkit now forms the model for future development solutions
- Created internal momentum into development-focused offerings
Post-launch validation plan
To support continuous UX improvement, I established a structured validation strategy linked to the design principles outlined earlier and the related success metrics:
Design for Repeatable Reflection
Research Focus
Keep Interactions Lightweight
Research Focus
Content-Led Relevance
Research Focus
Structure for Sustainability
Research Focus
Reusable foundations for faster delivery
The approach we took to building the Skills Discovery Toolkit has already started to pay off. We've been able to begin production on the next version of the toolkit significantly faster.
By investing early in reusability and scalability, the toolkit is making product development more efficient and commercially viable.
Reflections
Key Learnings
- Early alignment on both user needs and business goals is critical to designing scalable products.
- Building modular, reusable systems up front unlocks massive efficiency later.
- True cross-functional collaboration strengthens product quality and delivery speed.
What I'd Do Differently
- Taking a component-first approach alongside wireframing would have allowed us to focus conversations on the logic and reuse value of individual components - the building blocks of the toolkit ecosystem
- Push harder for lightweight external user validation earlier, even with limited resources. As we got closer to launch, we still had open questions around product positioning and commercial strategy
