How do you bring design maturity to an organization shaping the future of a capital city — one platform, one workshop, one trust-building conversation at a time?

The Royal Commission for Riyadh City (RCRC) is the highest governmental authority responsible for the comprehensive, strategic development of Riyadh — overseeing its transformation into one of the world's top economies by 2030. Established in 1974, it leads the city's development across urban, social, economic and environmental sectors, including megaprojects like the Riyadh Metro and King Salman Park.

• Client — Royal Commission for Riyadh City
• Scope — 10+ multi-sector government projects
• Role — Experience Design Lead

My mandate: modernize RCRC's digital platforms by delivering seamless, user-friendly experiences that align with business goals while elevating usability — crafting fresh, intuitive interfaces that enhance both internal operations and external engagement across all RCRC applications.

The Bawabaty Portal is RCRC's internal application, centralizing employee services, benefits, tasks, requests, work details and organizational information. It was impacted by inconsistent design, cluttered content and a complex interface that made everyday tasks inefficient for thousands of employees.

The objective was to revamp the portal into a seamless, user-friendly experience that better supported employees in managing their daily work and engaging with the organization.

• One-on-one requirement-gathering sessions with stakeholders
• In-depth UX research
• Clear scopes and delivery timelines
• A full revamp of the Bawabaty Portal with a modern experience
• A scalable, user-centered design system
• Detailed developer handoff for smooth implementation

I began by immersing myself in the existing Bawabaty experience, testing its workflows first-hand to identify pain points before a single stakeholder conversation — so I could approach those conversations with a deeper understanding of employees' day-to-day frustrations. From there, we analyzed the portal's structure, ran collaborative workshops, and interviewed employees who were directly facing usability issues.

We connected with employees across departments to understand real usage patterns and challenges. These conversations validated our initial assumptions and brought a genuinely user-centered perspective into the design process.

After gathering insights from interviews, I moved into deeper analysis of the problems employees and managers faced — creating personas, mapping employee and manager journeys, and restructuring the existing and to-be sitemaps. Across multiple stakeholder sessions, we defined a clear North Star vision that balanced user needs with RCRC's business goals.

Wireframes reimagined the portal experience — simplifying navigation, reducing steps and improving information structure. The solution was aligned with a new RCRC design system, ensuring consistency through standardized components and patterns across the platform.

RCRC initially had low design maturity and limited awareness of design practices. I focused on educating stakeholders, building alignment and establishing trust in design before leading end-to-end delivery of the Bawabaty Portal across strategy, UX and execution.

That trust led to broader adoption of design within the organization — unlocking new projects and scaling design teams across multiple government initiatives.

RCRC faced challenges attracting and managing talent due to the absence of a dedicated careers platform: no centralized, public-facing job portal, difficulty showcasing opportunities across key segments (Experts, Graduates, Trainees), fragmented candidate journeys, and limited ability to position RCRC as a modern, competitive employer. The ask was a purpose-built careers platform that enhances visibility, simplifies applications and delivers a seamless candidate experience.

We approached it as a candidate-experience and employer-branding challenge — researching candidate behavior and leading global job platforms, structuring clear segmentation for Experts, Graduates and Trainees, designing intuitive navigation and streamlined application flows, and creating a modern interface aligned with RCRC's brand identity on a scalable foundation for future hiring needs.

Alongside Bawabaty and the Careers Portal, the work extended to further RCRC initiatives including a Diplomatic Quarter Events platform, part of the same 10+ project engagement spanning RCRC's multi-sector digital ecosystem.

• Building design maturity requires influence, not just execution — educating stakeholders and creating alignment was critical before delivering outcomes
• End-to-end ownership drives real impact — leading across strategy, UX and delivery ensured both product success and organizational adoption
• Designing at government scale demands strong systems thinking — managing complexity across platforms required structuring experiences beyond individual features
• Consistency is key to scaling design — establishing a design system enabled faster delivery and long-term sustainability
• Trust in design unlocks growth — demonstrating impact led to expanded opportunities and broader adoption across the organization