Google Assistant - Design System

On the Google Assistant team, I was the solo lead designer on a horizontal design system team tasked to unify 5 independent design systems across Mobile, TV, Smart Displays, Auto, and Wearables, used by 21 UX teams and 500+ UX designers.

I reduced 600+ components across 5 independent design systems to a common set of 56 components, and created a central Figma library with weekly average 1,000+ component inserts and saving $54M in designers’ time.

My responsibilities on Google Assistant included the following:

• Awarded spot bonus for leadership on horizontal team unifying 5 independent design systems across all Google Assistant surfaces (mobile, smart displays, TV, auto, wearables) for 21 UX teams and 500+ UX FTEs across Google Assistant UX

• Created central Figma library reducing 600+ components across 5 design systems to core set of 56 components, saving $54M in designers’ time with a weekly average of 1,000+ component inserts

• Managed day-to-day expectations for a team of 10 external vendors from design agency Huge on design production of scalable Figma components, libraries, and stickersheets

• Created and maintained internal repository website hosting documentation on multi-modal interaction patterns and best practices averaging 30 daily visits

• Organized and facilitated biweekly design system council meetings with 30+ senior managers and UX ICs across the Google Assistant UX org, providing updates across org

Here’s an overview of some of the major tasks I led:

Unified Google Assistant Design System Figma Library

Component libraries are Figma libraries to ensure consistency at a UI atomic + molecular level, not intended to be looked at by other designers

Stickersheets are Figma libraries that ensure quick and easy reference to what is in production at a UI organism level (atom > molecule > organism)

Internal Google Site and Repository

In addition to working in Figma to unify libraries, I was also tasked with creating an internal Google Site documenting the design system and serving as a source-of-truth.

Stakeholder Management & Operational Model

A central design system means working with multiple teams to ensure everyone’s voice is heard and each team is represented equally.

My responsibility was to host and facilitate a weekly design system council meeting where updates were regularly shared and voiced. This involved reaching out to multiple teams to “enlist” a POC and sending admin emails to keep the team up-to-date.

Design Vision & Planning

To align with stakeholders, quarterly milestones and OKRs were aligned to make sure teams were accountable with support a unified design system effort.

To learn more about the design process, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn.