Design system & research templates
Giving the team shared building blocks instead of blank pages
Our design system was out of date, so designers rebuilt components and research documents from scratch on almost every project. I created reusable research templates and helped rebuild and organize the component library, alongside teammates who each added the elements their projects needed. Delivery time dropped from weeks to days.
Impact
to deliver new designs
research templates the team reused
shared library everyone added to
Challenge
The design system hadn't kept up with what we were shipping. Designers rebuilt buttons, forms, and layouts for each project, and some teammates spent weeks recreating elements by hand. Research had the same problem. Every journey map, competitor analysis, and persona started from a blank page and looked different from the last one.
What I built
Three research templates, so every project started from the same structure.
Illustrative recreations of the templates.
Rebuilding the library
I also helped design and organize components for Pega and the customer-facing brand, from buttons and inputs to status tags and step indicators. It was a team effort. Teammates built other elements, and the library grew with real project work.
How the team kept it growing
Whenever someone built a new element for their project, it went into the shared library.
- 1. Design
- Build what the project needs
- 2. Review
- Check it against the system
- 3. Add
- Publish it to the library
- 4. Reuse
- The next project starts there
Results
New work started from shared pieces, so designers spent their time on the problem.
Time to deliver new designs
Every project used the same templates
Reflection
What I learned: a system stays useful only when adding to it is easy. What I'd do differently: write short usage guidance for each component and track which ones teams actually use.
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All work
Every project, plus additional work and experiments