Keywords

SaaS

B2B

0→1

Research

Accessibility

Leadership

Timeframe

2023 - 2025

Systems That Survive Real Life

Scaling SocialHub for enterprise structure, trust, and flows

I work on complex B2B products where things break fast if the system isn’t thought through. My focus isn’t just shipping features, but designing structures teams can rely on when things get chaotic.

At SocialHub, I helped evolve the product from a single-user tool into a platform large teams could trust. That meant designing structure, ownership, and flow while keeping the experience effortless.

Note: This isn’t a single feature walkthrough. It shows how I approach my work, using multiple features I designed.

Context

SocialHub is a social media management platform used by teams and enterprise customers. As usage scaled, the product needed stronger structure, clearer ownership, and fewer workarounds outside the tool.

My Role

I was the Lead Product Designer at SocialHub, owning product design across the core web platform and two native apps.

As the product scaled, I helped move design away from one-off screenshots toward a more durable setup: a cohesive redesign, a reusable UI library, and clearer team habits.

I worked end-to-end with PM and Engineering, from early problem framing through UI and implementation, and supported other designers through mentoring and critique. I also owned UX writing across the platform in 3 languages.

My Approach

As a designer, I spend most of my time making complex ideas understandable.

I design features by thinking through how they’ll actually be used, across roles and situations, and by prioritizing practical ease over theoretical elegance.

The goal is always the same: make things feel obvious to use, even when what’s happening behind the scenes is extremely intricate.

My Process

I adapt my work depending on the goals, the team, and the complexity of the work. My process at SocialHub looked like this:

  1. Signals: we decided what to build based on user feedback, company-wide insights, and user metrics.

  2. Discovery: we did everything to understand the workflow, roles, and constraints behind feature requests.

  3. Early technical alignment: a Tech Lead was involved early to sanity-check feasibility and surface constraints before committing to a direction.

  4. Concept & options: I explored solutions with the Product Trio, involving dev and design when needed. When decisions were stuck, I used quick prototypes or vibe coding to make tradeoffs tangible.

  5. Kickoff: once the Product Trio aligned, I ran a kickoff with the product team to walk through the concept, edge cases, and open questions.

  6. Execution support: during development, I answered questions, and helped engineers make decisions independently while keeping patterns consistent.

  7. QA & launch: I did QA before release to make sure the shipped experience matched the intent, then supported launch.

  8. Post-launch check: after launch, we reviewed the success metrics we’d defined in advance, and iterated when needed.

Let's look at a few concrete examples that show how this all played out across different areas of the platform.

Smart Custom Folders

As teams grew, the Inbox stopped being one stream of tickets. Different channels, different types of requests, and different urgency levels all landed in the same place.

The problem wasn’t that people needed more folders. It was that the default structure wasn’t enough to surface what mattered quickly, without manual filtering over and over again.

So I designed Smart Custom Folders: shared inbox folders that automatically sort tickets based on channel, type, or sentiment, so teams can create the structure they need and keep it up to date without extra work.

I treated the first version as a foundation, the model supports adding more criteria and folder types later without needing a redesign.

Why this worked

  • Shared structure without micromanaging how people work.

  • Reduced manual upkeep, so attention goes to the tickets, not the sorting.

  • A simple setup that teams adopt quickly and use consistently.

Multi-Stage Approval

As teams grew, publishing content stopped being a simple yes-or-no decision. Different roles needed different levels of visibility, and approvals often depended on context: who created the post, which channel it was for, and what stage it was in.

The challenge was making responsibility and status clear without forcing users to learn a complicated process.

I designed a multi-stage approval flow that reflects how teams actually work: clear states, explicit ownership, and predictable transitions. Complexity is handled by the system, while the interface stays readable and calm.

Why this worked

  • Clear ownership, so it’s always obvious who’s responsible at each stage.

  • Explicit states, so nothing feels hidden or ambiguous.

  • Complex rules handled quietly, without pushing decisions onto the user.

Translation

International community management sounds glamorous until you’re staring at a ticket you can’t read and still have to reply fast, correctly, and in the right tone.

The real problem was that translation lived outside the workflow. Copying text into another tool breaks focus, loses context, and increases the risk of sending the wrong message.

To resolve these issues, I designed Ticket Translation and Reply Translation directly in the Inbox. Users can translate incoming messages to understand them instantly, then translate their reply before sending, without leaving the thread.

Why this worked

  • No copy-paste detours, translation happens where the ticket is.

  • More coverage so teams can handle tickets across markets.

  • Faster resolution times and quicker replies that move the thread forward.

Canva Integration

Content creation was part of everyday work for our users. Assets were created, adjusted, reused, and iterated constantly, often by different people.

The friction came from breaking that flow. Designing in one tool, exporting files, re-uploading, and managing versions pulled people out of their work and slowed everything down.

I integrated Canva directly into the workflow. Users can now open existing media in Canva, edit it, and export it straight back. Or start in Canva and push finished designs directly, without extra steps.

The focus was keeping momentum and reducing unnecessary handoffs.

Why this worked

  • Fewer context switches, so creating assets doesn’t interrupt the task.

  • Less file chaos, because exports go straight where they’re needed.

  • Fits different working styles, whether someone starts in Canva or the hub.

Impact


0%

Faster velocity

from kickoff to release

0x

Higher usage

in enterprise accounts

0%

Repeat usage

within 30 days

Reflection

Design scales when it survives real life. Reusable patterns, consistent language, workflows that hold up under pressure. Details evolve but the job stays the same: make the challenges manageable.

What All of This Unlocked…

Once foundations were in place, teams could move faster without the product fragmenting. New features reused patterns, decisions were clearer, and the platform scaled without adding friction for users.

Before Shereen’s work, design decisions were often made in isolation. What changed was the underlying structure. Features started fitting into a coherent system, which made it much easier to reason about scope, dependencies, and long-term impact. Design stopped being reactive and became something the whole product direction could align around.

Andrea Heyne

Product Management Lead

SocialHub

What stood out was how design became a stabilizing factor as the product scaled. Complex workflows were broken down into structures teams could actually work with. That reduced back-and-forth during implementation and made planning more predictable. From a delivery perspective, design became something teams could rely on instead of work around.

Maria Jaccoud

Product Manager

SocialHub

The biggest impact was that design decisions were made with implementation and scale in mind. Engineering was involved early, constraints were clear, and systems were built so we could extend them without breaking consistency. That reduced uncertainty during development and allowed engineers to make decisions independently without needing design input for every edge case.

Oussama Trabelsi

Tech Lead

SocialHub

More Shipped Work

Just a snapshot of other concepts designed by me that went live across web and native.

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If you’re building a SaaS product and need someone with clarity, experience, and a get-shit-done mindset, let’s talk.