Design system2023
Pulse Design System
One shared design system that brought four analytics products onto a single visual language.
- Client
- Pulse Analytics
- Role
- Design systems lead
- Year
- 2023
- Services
- Design system
- Component library
- Design tokens
- Documentation
Overview
Pulse had grown through acquisitions into four products with four different looks, three button styles and more than forty shades of blue. I led a small team to create one design system, shared across design and code, that every product team actually wanted to use.
Results
- shared components across four products
- 120+
- faster from design to shipped feature
- 45%
- component library instead of four
- 1
Case study
The challenge
Every new feature meant redesigning the same building blocks again. Customers who used more than one Pulse product felt like they were switching between companies, and engineers were maintaining four separate component libraries.
The approach
We audited every screen across the four products, agreed on a shared set of design tokens and rebuilt the most-used components first. Each component shipped with documentation, accessibility notes and usage examples in both Figma and code.
- Audited more than 600 screens and grouped every pattern by purpose
- Defined tokens for color, type, spacing and motion that work in light and dark themes
- Set up office hours and a contribution model so teams could extend the system
The outcome
All four products now share one design language and one component library. Teams ship features noticeably faster, and new designers are productive in their first week.
