Three times I let go
Written for Apple. Three things nobody asked me to fix.
One
I still remember my first design recommendation to my current company.
I hadn’t been hired yet.
I was in the interview and I told them their icons needed to flip for right-to-left — but not all of them, and not automatically.
It depends what the icon is saying. An arrow means forward, so it turns. A clock means time, so it doesn’t.
They gave me a verbal offer before I’d left the room.
A few months later I proposed the set properly.
Brand built it — directional icons mirrored, everything else left alone — and added it to the shared library.
I haven’t touched it since.
Every Arabic screen uses it anyway.
Two
Once I’d joined, I was working in the most interesting part of the business
— the app —
when my product owner came to me with a nav item. The company wanted to promote stopovers.
I pushed back.
Not because stopovers didn’t deserve a place. Because if I said yes without understanding the bigger picture, I’d say yes again the following month, and the month after that, and the nav bar would quietly become another hamburger menu with a hundred things hidden inside it.
Saying no isn’t a proposal, though. So a few months later I came back with one: a deck reviewing the app’s navigation,
exploring what the information architecture could become, and making room for more of the business to join the party.
I defined the logic — where things go, why, and what happens when the next team arrives with something nobody has planned for.
Then it was down to visual design and style alignment, and I stepped back.
The app now has a super nav.
The Home team designed it. I had nothing to do with how it looks.
I’m so proud of it.
Three
Then, dark mode. Hardly a new idea. Half the market had one.
So why didn’t we?
Brand. Nobody had ever got the approval and sign-off from them.
I prepared another deck and walked into my manager’s room.
“It’s you again. What’s new this time?”
I showed them the vision. And I told them that this time we needed to ask brand to join the party.
It wasn’t an easy conversation. Our core burgundy simply wasn’t accessible at the contrast dark mode demands, and brand had every reason to defend the colour — it’s theirs to protect.
It took rounds of alignment and a workshop before we found the thing we’d agreed on the whole time without noticing: a premium brand identity and genuine customer care aren’t in tension.
They’re the same promise. Our brand designer came with us. Dark mode ended up the best of both worlds.
Did I design which hex code we use for the dark mode brand colour?
No. But I’m sure our design system team had the best choices.
If you ask me what’s music to my ears, it’s a message that says:
“Thanks for sharing that, Rosalyn. I see this in a different perspective.”
Every March I’m invited back to UCL to talk to the master’s students. Recently I shared my AI design process and my own prompt library with thirty designers at our all-hands.
Always get inspired. And ignite a spark in the people around you.