Design System Case Study: Scaling Consistency & Efficiency

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Overview

As a Product Designer, I led the initiative to build and enhance a scalable design system that streamlined workflows, improved UI consistency, and empowered designers and developers to work efficiently. This project focused on scalability, accessibility, and cross-team adoption to ensure a seamless design-to-development process.

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Problem Statement

Before the design system, the product faced:
🚨 Inconsistent UI patterns across different features.
🚨 Time-consuming handoffs between designers and developers.
🚨 Lack of accessibility standards, leading to usability concerns.
🚨 No unified documentation, making onboarding difficult for new team members.

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Goals & Objectives

✅ Create a scalable, reusable component library in Figma and align it with the front-end framework for both Desktop and Mobile.
✅ Establish design tokens for colors, typography, spacing, and themes.
✅ Improve collaboration between design and development through shared documentation with timely updates.
✅ Ensure accessibility compliance (WCAG 2.1) across all components.
✅ Reduce design-to-development time by implementing structured guidelines.

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My Role & Responsibilities

🎨 UI/UX : Research, analyse and defined core components, variants, and interaction patterns.
📐 Design Tokens: Implemented a token-based system for scalability while reducing time to development.
📝 Documentation: Created a centralized Figma library & developer handbook.
🔄 Collaboration: Worked closely with developers to integrate designs into React/Angular frameworks.
🛠 Tooling: Used Figma, Storybook, and GitHub to maintain updates.

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Process & Approach

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1. Research & Audit

• Conducted a UI audit of existing screens to identify inconsistencies.
• Researched industry-leading design systems (Material UI, IBM Carbon, Atlassian) for best practices.
• Gathered data from interviews with developers and users to understand pain points.

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2. Component Library Creation

• Designed atomic-level components (buttons, inputs, tables, etc.).
• Introduced variants, auto-layout, and constraints in Figma for flexible usage.
• Implemented dark mode & theming capabilities using design tokens.

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3. Development Collaboration

• Partnered with developers to build a Storybook-based UI component library.
• Standardized naming conventions and versioning for smooth updates.
• Ensured pixel-perfect translation of components from Figma to code with help of Design Tokens.

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4. Documentation & Adoption

• Created detailed guidelines in Figma.
• Established a feedback loop for continuous improvements.

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Impact & Results

📉 40% reduction in design debt by eliminating inconsistencies.
⏳ 30% faster handoff & implementation time for new features.
🎯 Successful releases every quarter which currently is used across 300+ teams with over 300k inserts every quarter.
♿ Improved accessibility—achieved AA compliance for majority of core components.
💡 Enhanced scalability, allowing easy expansion for future products.

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Lessons Learned & Next Steps

• Evangelization is key—continuous education ensures adoption.
• Early developer collaboration prevents friction during implementation as developer version is few versions behind design file.
• Versioning & governance help keep the design system scalable & maintainable.
• Future plans: Integrate AI-driven design suggestions.

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Final Thoughts

This project was a game-changer in improving efficiency, collaboration, and UI consistency. It reinforced my passion for building scalable design systems that empower teams and create a seamless user experience.

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