Ditto - UI design

Project Overview

Ditto approached us at a pivotal moment in their growth. Known for its collaborative documentation and real-time productivity tools, Ditto had built a passionate user base. However, as they scaled, inconsistencies across platforms and a dated UI began hindering usability and brand perception. Users found it increasingly difficult to navigate between mobile, tablet, and desktop without cognitive strain. Their internal team had reached a design bottleneck — they needed a partner who could not only modernize the interface but also systematize it across all touchpoints without disrupting their active user workflows.

They weren’t just asking for a fresh coat of paint — they wanted a thoughtful UI transformation that aligned with their vision for the future of work.

Our Approach

We began with a discovery phase involving deep stakeholder interviews, heatmap analysis of existing user behavior, and a UI audit across all platforms. The findings confirmed our hypothesis: while the core experience was powerful, the UI lacked hierarchy, consistency, and visual clarity. The product was useful, but not delightful.

We crafted a new design strategy rooted in five key principles:

1. Unification Across Platforms – We built a shared design language that adapted seamlessly from desktop to mobile to tablet.

2. Cognitive Lightness – We reduced friction by simplifying navigation, improving whitespace, and introducing visual anchors.

3. Modular Flexibility – Every component was made modular so the product team could ship faster without breaking design consistency.

4. Intelligent Feedback Loops – Visual states were enhanced with microinteractions, giving users immediate, meaningful feedback.

5. Developer Harmony – We worked closely with Ditto’s engineering team to create design tokens and documentation that would reduce implementation time.

Key Challenges & Solutions

• Inconsistent Design Across Devices:
  We created a unified design system with shared spacing units, color tokens, and typography scales that worked seamlessly across breakpoints. This allowed Ditto’s team to deploy consistent experiences without reinventing layouts for each device.

• Complex User Flows with Low Discoverability:
  Through user journey mapping and usability testing, we restructured workflows around common use cases (e.g., “Start a new note,” “Assign a task,” “Collaborate on content”). The result was a navigation structure that felt logical, predictive, and fast.

• Lack of Visual Hierarchy in Dashboards:
  We redesigned the dashboard to prioritize content over controls, introduce collapsible panels, and implement a “recent activity” feed with hover-based interactions for quick scanning.