Billy Harris
Senior Product Designer - Kiwi based in London
Hi! I'm Billy, a Senior Product Designer by day and a design mentor by night. I've worked across the entire product lifecycle, both as a solo designer and as part of large, cross-functional teams. I have a genuine curiosity about the intersection between brand, accessibility, systems, and customer needs. I also tinker with code and build things on the side. Although based in London, I'm open to relocation and hold a New Zealand citizenship.
Professional Experience
Senior Product Designer (Design System)
January 2025 - Now- • Lead and scale the evolution of Typeform's design system, ensuring consistency, accessibility, and efficiency across products
- • Work at the intersection of design and engineering, crafting robust UI foundations
- • Enable product teams to deliver cohesive, user-friendly experiences at speed
- • Focus on design system growth and adoption across the organization
Senior Product Designer
November 2021 - December 2024- • Led the growth of BA's design system (BAgel/AirFrame), supporting 40+ products across the organisation
- • Rebuilt entire design system from the ground up, embedding multi-brands, native app (iOS and Android) support
- • Implemented scalability, accessibility and tokenisation across the system
- • Achieved #1 ranking in 2023 CAA airline digital accessibility audit
- • Redesigned Flight Status tool (1.5M+ visits/year) resulting in 25% increase in customer satisfaction
- • Began working on the CMS of ba.com and several SPAs
- • Drove near 100% design system adoption rate across products
UX Lead
November 2020 - November 2021- • Wore many hats in a small team environment
- • Led wireframing, prototyping, user-testing, UI design & developer hand-off
- • Worked with clients including Haulfryn Holidays, Kent County Council & Basket
- • Led UX redesign of BiO maintenance request system for building engineers
Design Lead
April 2019 - September 2020- • Led a team of 4 designers working on variety of visual elements
- • Worked with one of the world's leading startup accelerators
- • Designed new brands and created digital assets for virtual demo days
- • Clients included Asahi Beverages, Royal Dutch Shell
Digital Designer
July 2016 - July 2017- • Worked part-time during degree creating branding and UI mockups
- • Developed UI for Conversant's new VoIP Application "Hero"
Key Achievements
AirFrame Design System (2024)
Complete rebuild of British Airways' design system serving 38 million passengers
- • System of systems approach supporting multi-brand and native platforms
- • Near 100% adoption across 25+ digital products
- • Full WCAG 2.2 compliance achieving #1 CAA accessibility ranking
Flight Status Redesign (2023)
Complete UI/UX overhaul of critical customer tool
- • 25% increase in customer satisfaction scores
- • 1.5M+ annual visits with improved accessibility
- • 100% design system component integration
Slot-based Component Architecture
Revolutionary approach to component consistency and flexibility
- • Significant improvement in design consistency across products
- • Reduced component variants while increasing flexibility
- • Enhanced developer experience and implementation speed
Skills & Expertise
Design Systems
- • Component Architecture & Design Tokens
- • Multi-brand Theming & Native Platform Support
- • Accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA Compliance)
- • Slot-based Component Design
- • Design System Strategy & Adoption
Research & Testing
- • User Research & Card Sorting
- • Usability Testing & Heuristic Reviews
- • Customer Satisfaction Metrics
- • Competitor Analysis
- • Data-Driven Design Decisions
Leadership & Collaboration
- • Cross-functional Team Leadership
- • Design Mentoring & Education
- • Stakeholder Management
- • Design System Evangelism
- • Workshop Facilitation
Side Projects, Freelance & Mentoring
Design Mentor at MentorCruise
September 2022 - Now • Remote
Outside of my 9-5 I mentor budding product/UX designers helping with portfolio reviews, technical Figma help and mock interviews.
Freelance Designer at CreativeBilly
Late 2017 - Now • Remote
Create websites, brochures, pitch decks and visual content for startup clients. Clients include: Lucidica - IT Support, Redgrid - The Internet of Energy, Rydlyme International, Powerdiver and Zilch Forwarding.
Founder at Cheapestpint.uk
September 2023 - Now • Remote
Built a crowdsourced cheap pint aggregator to find the UK's cheapest pints. Got almost 600 pint prices contributed so far. Built in React.
Motion Designer at ADPList
August 2020 - Now • Remote
Was on the founding team at ADPList, created animations and motion graphics for campaigns and new product launches.
Mentor at ADPList
2020 - Now • Remote
In my spare time I help other designers progress their careers by offering mentorship sessions after my 9-5.
High Fidelity Studio
Co-founder of tiny app studio
Building innovative digital products and experiences with a focus on high-quality design and development.
Education
Bachelor of Design Innovation
2015 - 2017Victoria University of Wellington - Wellington, New Zealand 🇳🇿
Major in Media Design (Interaction), Minor in Information Architecture