Kik• Messenger was Kik Interactive Inc. was founded in 2009 in Canada and was Acquired by MediaLab in 2019.Â
Role: Senior Product Designer, Kik
Project: Kik• Messenger
Situation:Â Following the acquisition of Kik Messenger and during ongoing product stabilization, the design system became a critical area of focus. The platform suffered from significant inconsistencies across iOS and Android, including mismatched UI components, divergent interaction patterns, and uneven visual standards caused by years of parallel development and shifting product priorities. These inconsistencies slowed engineering implementation, increased design debt, and created a fragmented user experience across Apple and Android devices.
As part of my ongoing responsibilities, I was tasked with maintaining and evolving the design system while the product remained in active development. This required balancing immediate product needs with long-term system integrity, aligning iOS Human Interface Guidelines and Android Material Design constraints, and ensuring components could be implemented consistently across both platforms despite limited resources and frequent roadmap changes.
Task:Â I was responsible for rebuilding the Kik Messenger design system to resolve cross platform inconsistencies between iOS and Android, while benchmarking leading chat apps and social media platforms to bring Kik up to current industry standards. In parallel, I led key product initiatives including the first time user experience, the Kik It experience, the Kik.com website, age verification flows, and core features such as the Kik font system and public groups.
Action: I developed my product designer skill set while leading multiple initiatives at every phase, from concept and exploration to green-light development. I wrote Product Requirement Documents, held regular check-ins with product management to ensure designs aligned with business objectives, and collaborated closely with engineering to provide visibility into design thinking and gather feedback. I applied these skills across the first-time user experience, Kik It, Kik.com desktop, public groups, ad-free features, Kik Plus, and audio LIVE, ensuring consistency, usability, and alignment across platforms.​​​​​​​
Result: The outcome included the creation of a reusable design component and asset library for Kik, improving consistency and efficiency across platforms. The redesigned first-time user experience was implemented in production, and the Kik.com website was redesigned and launched. In addition, new features such as Kik•It and multiple supporting products were successfully designed and delivered, helping modernize the platform under MediaLab.​​​​​​​
Kik• Design System
Kik• entire design system needed to be rebuilt from scratch in Figma.  Here are a few of the design components from the design system files.
 FTUE
Our goal is to improve the landing splash page, test accessibility, include ad units on every screen, streamline onboarding by collecting only essential personal information, apply best-practice micro-animations at each step, and introduce new users to the platform without friction or unnecessary data collection.
Kik•It
I evaluated the existing “Meet New People” feature, which operated synchronously, and designed a new user flow to enable asynchronous connections based on mutual interests. I created and prototyped the experience in Figma and validated it through user testing with Userlytics. The design focused on increasing engagement, supporting onboarding, enabling meaningful connections, and creating an equal or more improved revenue stream.
Week 5 of Kik•It, rolled out to 40%. Adoption 50% above 20% rollout and still climbing. Number of purchases almost 2x.
Android revenue holding in the range ($300-$500/day), we want to see this number climb 25-50% to validate that Kik•It is a more effective monetization lever than Meet New People.
A 30 minute unmoderated user test and Figma Prototype was conducted on the userlytics.com platform.
Kik.com
I redesigned the Kik.com homepage in collaboration with an engineer and created three custom icons representing the platform’s core value propositions: Public Groups, LIVE, and the newly launched Kik•It feature.
