Design system

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

My task

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

A recruitment poster and an image of Mike Mathis preparing drawings to be used for a component survey

Some of my actions

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”

Actions (continued)

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

Design system components within the design tool matched their React counterparts. I would often collaborate with designers from across the company as more components were proposed, and as designers generated bespoke design solutions that remained consistent with the system.

A group of screens I designed using the design system

I would eventually join the Dealertrack team as a product designer, where I had the opportunity to design new portions of the product using the design system. Samples are shown above.

Impact