With the launch of ZEOS One, Zalando's new multi-channel fulfillment portal, I led the design strategy for its support ecosystem, working closely with product to define the vision and prioritize investments for how users would effectively unblock themselves and return to their day-to-day tasks. We identified that a central, scalable help center acting as a knowledge base was the critical first step, and I was responsible for its end-to-end design—from initial user flows and wireframes to prototyping and documenting final components for engineering handover. This new help center became the foundational enabler for all subsequent support capabilities, including the developer portal, support ticketing, and chat bot, and is currently used by [X] users.
Design & User research: Alecio Calixto, Liang Hiah, Nina Jurcic, Lekan Isaac, Wyndham Mead, Oscar Fredriksson.
Product & Engineering: Daniele Vitali.
The problem wasn’t that merchants using our portal couldn’t find information. The real problem was that the organization had no shared mental model of how information should be structured in a scalable manner. Conway's law + optimisng for speed.
We discovered that the legacy navigation wasn't designed for the user—it was a byproduct of the org chart.
In alignment with Conway's Law, the interface had fragmented into isolated silos, perfectly mirroring the disconnected engineering teams that built them. To fix the UX, we first had to break the mental link between "Team Structure" and "Site Structure."
This project reinforced that information architecture is less about finding the perfect structure, and more about creating a structure the organization can agree on — and maintain over time.
We cataloged over 70 unique feature requirements from legacy systems, creating a "sacrificial" backlog to identify grouping patterns.
Traditional wireframing was insufficient to evaluate the revised navigation behaviour. We needed something closer to an interactive system. AI-assisted prototyping (also known as vibe coding) enabled us to simulate the portal architecture with realistic flows, drastically improving stakeholder alignment.
We audited the main navigation, removing redundant technical features, renaming sections to match merchant mental models, and surfacing key value areas.
We had to wait with the content management system (CMS) connection and hard code the articles for the first release. Some of the content categories are still missing content, so we have placeholders for now. https://help.zeos.eu
This project reinforced that information architecture is less about finding the perfect structure, and more about creating a structure the organization can agree on — and maintain over time.
We had to wait with the content management system (CMS) connection and hard code the articles for the first release. Some of the content categories are still missing content, so we have placeholders for now.
