About this project
Elphas
A large-scale web platform built to map, manage and improve employee skills; designed from the ground up with a custom design system, strong UX, and adaptable onboarding.
Year
2021
Type
Web-platform
Agency
Elphas
Goal
Skills Management
Elphas Skills Management set out to tackle a broad and ambitious goal: giving companies in the Northern Netherlands deep insight into their workforce’s skills, while also enabling employees to grow through targeted learning. This platform wasn’t just a tool; it was a two-sided ecosystem, combining management-level overviews with individual user growth paths. The challenge lay in designing for both: something powerful and intuitive, with clarity across the board. It needed to scale, adapt to different company needs, and feel cohesive from the first onboarding screen to the deepest analytics page. The lack of established competitors locally made this an open field, but also meant there were few best practices to borrow from. Every feature had to be carefully considered, tested, and integrated in a way that made sense to a broad user base. I approached this by building a comprehensive design system in Figma, which was then translated into reusable front-end components via Tailwind CSS, and evolving it alongside the growing product. We applied this system to every part of the platform; from skill profiles and e-learning modules to dashboards and team insights, ensuring visual and functional consistency at every level. This was a product that demanded thoughtful UX at scale. The navigation had to support dozens of potential user actions without becoming overwhelming. The UI needed to speak to professionals across industries, and the tone of the product needed to encourage personal growth without ever drifting into corporate coldness. The final result is a platform that balances flexibility with clarity; powerful, but never overengineered.
Impressions
Process
Work began with foundational research into skill management needs, both from the perspective of HR departments and the employees themselves. With little to draw from in terms of direct competitors, we conducted extensive interviews and workshops to define must-have functionality and identify common pain points. From there, I sketched out early concepts and user flows, working closely with our small dev team to ensure feasibility and build alignment. The design system was a key pillar throughout this project. It went through several iterations as new feature needs emerged, eventually becoming a robust kit that made consistent, scalable design possible even as the platform expanded. Each major feature, whether it was skill tracking, course recommendations, or team dashboards, was prototyped and tested with real users before final implementation. Feedback loops were tight and ongoing; we tested assumptions early and often, which made the platform stronger with each release. As usage grew, we extended the platform to support custom implementations. One of the largest was for the Digitale Academie Noord Nederland (DANN), which needed its own branded version of Elphas. I helped adapt the design system and structure for this use case, maintaining core usability while tailoring the experience to fit their audience.
Work began with foundational research into skill management needs, both from the perspective of HR departments and the employees themselves. With little to draw from in terms of direct competitors, we conducted extensive interviews and workshops to define must-have functionality and identify common pain points. From there, I sketched out early concepts and user flows, working closely with our small dev team to ensure feasibility and build alignment. The design system was a key pillar throughout this project. It went through several iterations as new feature needs emerged, eventually becoming a robust kit that made consistent, scalable design possible even as the platform expanded. Each major feature, whether it was skill tracking, course recommendations, or team dashboards, was prototyped and tested with real users before final implementation. Feedback loops were tight and ongoing; we tested assumptions early and often, which made the platform stronger with each release. As usage grew, we extended the platform to support custom implementations. One of the largest was for the Digitale Academie Noord Nederland (DANN), which needed its own branded version of Elphas. I helped adapt the design system and structure for this use case, maintaining core usability while tailoring the experience to fit their audience.
Other projects
This project was a deep dive into designing at scale; balancing structure, usability, and flexibility across a fast-evolving platform. Want to see how similar thinking applies in other environments? Explore a few more of my projects below.
