Contribution alignment
Duration
6 months
Role
Product Designer
Tools
Figma
Google Doc
Jira
Confluence
Collaborators
Designers
PMs
Web Engineers
QA Engineers
Context
Suzyās design system lacked structured contribution standards, leading to inconsistent components, frequent rework, and misalignment with engineering. Across the 90+ person product department, this slowed adoption and impacted product delivery. To address this, I introduced a standardized framework that streamlined contributions, enforced consistency, and improved cross-functional collaboration. As a result, the team worked more efficiently, adoption increased, and product quality improved
Impacts
Our team evaluated the success of this initiative through pre- and post-implementation data, comparison task completion speed, monitoring component adoption rate and errors, and running quantitative research with design system consumers. These system metrics and feedback ensured our initiative align and continue benefit business.
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Design speed
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QA process
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Design system satisfaction
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Product time-to-market
ā¹ Project Overview ā¹
Lack of design standards in a federative component contributions
Without a structured framework, component contributions were inconsistent, causing inefficiencies, misalignment with engineering, and slower product delivery.
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Component usage uncertainty
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Component rework
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FE & QA engineering inquires
Enable designers to create consistent components
Establish a systematic framework for scalable, high-quality component contributions, reducing inconsistencies, improving adoption, and ensuring better integration with the design system.
Component adoption rate
Production quality
Product delivery cycle
DS consumer satisfaction
5 key enhancements
To ensure smooth adoption without adding friction, I considered team's workload, background, and field of expertise to implement five structured improvements:
ā¹ Proof of Impacts ā¹
(1) More consistent components
I standardized visual and interaction patterns, along with structured component architecture, ensuring a unified design language and seamless adoption experience.
Checkbox components
Text input components
Other components
(2) Easier design system adoption
I created clear guidelines and structured processes lowered onboarding barriers, allowing designers and engineers at all experience levels to contribute and integrate components with confidence.
Consistently organized Figma property panel
Syntactical color tokens
Standardized guidelines
(3) Direct product impact
Following these improvements, the Suzy Action Creation feature saw measurable enhancements in usability and efficiency, with a more consistent and scalable design approach that accelerated implementation and reduced inconsistencies.
Reflection
This initiative transformed the federated contribution model into a structured, scalable system, making it easier for designers to contribute without compromising quality or efficiency. The framework not only improved current workflows but also laid the foundation for future scalability and growth of the design system.
šļø Final words
I would love to share the whole picture with you. If you have any trouble accessing the slides above or want to learn more about my approach, please reach out to me via LinkedIn or email. Iād love to have an in-depth conversation about this project.
