Ualá
Fare, creating an unique universe
Design System
Fintech
Company
Ualá
Year
2018-2022
Role
Design System Lead
In 2018, Ualá began its journey as a financial inclusion platform, and I joined the UX team to help shape a design identity aligned with its values. We started by deeply understanding the product and users to build a system that could clearly and consistently communicate the brand’s personality. Over four years, I led the development of a design system from scratch, establishing the foundations for scalability, clarity, and coherence across all platforms.
As the system matured, I assembled and led a multidisciplinary team of 25—including Product & Visual Designers and UX Writers—to expand documentation and grow the component library. This collaborative structure allowed us to streamline processes, accelerate delivery, and cut design and development time significantly—resulting in a leaner budget and faster time-to-market for future releases.
Goals
Business: Gain market and position the app to the first place in the market.
Product: Create a strong product that can be able to release features quickly.
User: Achieve an unique visual and intuitive experience.
Key metrics
Usage Statistics: Measure how frequently design components, patterns, or guidelines from the design system are used by development teams. This could include the number of components used per project or over a specific timeframe.
Scalability: Measure how effectively the design system accommodates the evolving needs of the product, considering new features, platforms, or devices.
Developer Efficiency Measure improvements in developer productivity, such as reduced coding time or ease of implementation of design elements.
Cost Savings: Calculate cost reductions in design and development processes due to the reuse of components and streamlined workflows facilitated by the design system.
Time-to-Market Improvement: Track the reduction in design and development time due to the reusability of design system components, resulting in faster feature releases.
Concepts
Closeness: Users have to feel accompanied: we have to help them in moments of tension and speak simply, clearly and without technicalities.
Trust: We have to transmit transparency and be detailed when explaining all the processes. We have to worry about generating tranquility and security.
Inclusion: We want the experience to be fast, easy and consistent. That our users feel that we help them manage their finances.
Look & Feel
The curved shapes of the brand gave rise to transparent waves that resembled waves or clouds. This first look & feel was reminiscent of a maritime or aquatic universe. We really liked the idea of transmitting that feeling of tranquility in our interface. From that world came the “lighthouse” element, which would later become a more inclusive one, and that is how “Fare” was born.
Typography
We chose the Public Sans font family for our entire system because it is designed to adapt to all platforms, both native and web. It has a very particular morphology and character and performs well in both large and small sizes
Documentation
We include a Guidelines document so that all interested people can see our system and learn how to use it, from developers and Product Owners to Stakeholders and Business people.
