4. Managing through the challenges

Challenge 1, The website had accumulated years of UX debt across every critical flow. With the architecture heavily guarded, improvements had to be scoped carefully.
→ I worked with PMs on both sides to prioritize fixes along critical user flows, using 10 Usability Heuristics from NN/Group as a shared framework that gave every recommendation a defensible rationale.

Challenge 2, The platform had to support outdated devices, and had always run on Arial, stable enough that the dev team had no intention of touching the font family. It sounds like a normal thing, but it genuinely wore my team down. For a UX team trying to build visual clarity, being locked into a single boring typeface with no flexibility is a particular kind of frustrating.
→ I brought in a senior designer with a strong typography background to extract as much as possible from Arial through precise control over line spacing, font scale ratios, and typographic rhythm.

Challenge 3, There was no way to measure how many users were actually reaching out to sellers because phone numbers had always been displayed openly. For a classifieds platform, that contact moment is defining, and for paying agents, it is the most direct measure of whether the platform is delivering value for them.
→ I identified this as a missing conversion signal and worked with the team to mask phone numbers behind a reveal button, turning every tap into a trackable event

Challenge 4, The lockdown hit right at kick-off, and no one knew how long it would last. Online interviews were not an option either, as Muaban’s team decided based on what they knew of their users at that time.
→ I judged it best to build first on SEO data and UX best practices, with a firm plan to return for research post-launch. It was not the ideal starting point, but it was a defensible one.

Challenge 5, SEO data shows patterns but tells you nothing about why people behave the way they do.
→ So we ran informal usability tests with our own parents (borrowing a practice from Thế Giới Di Động, one of Vietnam's most customer-obsessed retailers). It is unglamorous, but it reliably surfaces usability problems that data alone misses.

Challenge 6, After launch in January 2022, we returned in June for user research. By then, the CEO had narrowed the focus to real estate agents specifically, as they were the priority segment for the business. Real estate agents keep unpredictable hours and are hard to schedule, so instead of formal one-on-one interviews we ran open focus groups.
→ Whoever was available joined the session, and the group size shifted as people came and went. It was messy, but it got us in front of real users and gave Muaban’s in-house product team the direct feedback to drive their next iterations.

Challenge 7, Some agents were naturally vocal and tended to lead group conversations.
→ I stepped in as moderator when needed, reading the room through voice rhythm, body language, and social cues that come from years of facilitating research in Vietnamese contexts. That kept the quieter voices in the conversation and the findings balanced.

Challenge 8, Early in the project, after two sprints, the UX/UI Lead on my team hit a wall. The lockdown uncertainty and friction with Muaban's PM had worn the relationship to a breaking point. He raised concerns that were not reasonable given where the project stood, and we parted ways.
→ My network was wide enough that even in the middle of a lockdown I could bring in a strong replacement, and the project moved forward without losing momentum.

Challenge 9, Convincing a senior leadership board to trust in UX and new design solutions required more than data.
→ I grounded every recommendation in behavioral design principles, referencing Laws of UX and success patterns from leading platforms internationally. The key was translating those references into clear, structured reasoning at both the meso level of primary flows and the macro level of the overall product experience.

Challenge 10, Remote work was new for both teams, and without a shared structure, communication slowed and progress became hard to track.
→ I proposed a five-day sprint rhythm with Monday kick-offs and Friday outcome reports, which our PMs then rolled out. That cadence gave both teams enough clarity to know where they stood week to week and reduced the anxiety that comes from ambiguity in remote work.