Design system

To maximize ROI, a design system needed to be willingly adopted by product makers across 5 business units.

I needed to base our design system guidelines on sound decisions — showing that they weren’t based on personal opinion
Of course, this approach would also lead to a better product
I would serve as researcher, writer, and design contributor alongside Andrew Keym

In a survey, I asked participants to define icons in a series, guiding me on how to define them in the system
I even crowdsourced component names — sometimes combining popular answers to create hybrid names, e.g. “Toggle Switch” and “Modal Dialog”
Additional research efforts would touch on a common language glossary, illustration preferences, data density, and color contrast
Secondary research informed guidelines around component usage, accessibility standards, and other patterns
For good measure, I wrote about my research efforts and promoted my blog posts internally

My research efforts were just one component of the success of the system, likely leading to a better product and higher adoption — by UX and engineering teams from CA, GA, NY, TX, and UT
Within 2 years, the system had been used in over 300 projects across our dealership-facing SaaS products according to product owner Thomas Thrasher

Above: A collection of screens I designed with components of the design system.