Frog's leap towards efficiency

As the solo designer joining a hybrid team of five engineers, the key to success laid in understanding the team dynamics and earning trust. I set up individual interviews with each team member to hear their experiences and learn about workflows, pain points, expectations… and stories.
These sessions created a shared language and common ground.

With team alignment in place, it was time to hear from our target users: internal developers and designers. While anecdotal insights existed, structured, unbiased data was missing.

Partnering with the UX Research team, we designed a survey focusing on qualitative and quantitative feedback, which achieved a 72% response rate (76 of 106 developers, designers, and product managers). The issues of the design system resonated across teams.

*This survey has run every quarter since and measures NPS + collects data for future opportunities.

Armed with user insights, we realized that driving adoption required a fundamental shift in perspective. So the “Frog” was born, ready to leap from idea to implementation as we introduced a name and branding for the design system.

The Frog became something tangible, relatable, and fun. It opened up a world of possibilities: we could now tell stories around the DS, build engagement campaigns, and create resources that felt welcoming rather than instructional.

The documentation is the core of the design system, and research made it clear that the core needed an overhaul. Designers found it overly technical, and developers struggled to locate needed information.
To address this, we ran card-sorting workshops, improving information architecture, and then conducted opinion polls for component and token naming.

Developers created the Usage Collector: a tracking tool on how components were used across the product. It allowed us to identify underutilized and redundant components, simplifying the library.

This led to clearer navigation, more intuitive component names, and improved grouping logic. A new homepage, a template for component pages, and a dedicated section for Adverity’s design principles were created with helping designers to feel welcomed too.

At Adverity, the code repository was the single source of truth for design system components and tokens. Developers also had a sandbox environment (“Playground”) where they could prototype efficiently. Designers were facing a different reality. They relied on the Figma library, which often lacked components or was out of sync with the codebase.

We started looking for a solution using the DS code in Figma. Straightforward idea: the components and tokens would be rendered into Figma and stay synced. I was sure solutions for this existed, or not?
Searching for Figma plugins, we realized that this use case of syncing and translating DS code into Figma components, at that time, was really a niche. The majority of plugins did the opposite.

With lessons learned, and back to the drawing board, we decided to use what we had at our disposal. We analyzed how often new components were released and updated.

Good news here: not often. This allowed us to focus more on sync accuracy than speed.

An audit of Adverity’s Figma library followed. We discovered which components were missing, outdated, not compliant with a11y or disconnected from the actual codebase. With that data, we estimated the resources needed and got the green light from stakeholders… to begin engineering the automated sync between design and code.

We understood that adoption wasn’t just about tools and documentation: it was about creating a space for dialogue, learning, and feedback.

So we opened our doors, literally, as we created a Design System Lab: a hub, both offline and online, where designers and developers could:

• Ask questions and seek guidance directly from the DS team.
• Share pain points and ideas in a safe, collaborative space.
• Work together openly, fostering an atmosphere of shared ownership.

Regular internal (streamed online) meetups were hosted. And with every session, awareness about the design system grew, engagement increased, and the active user base expanded.
Gradually, the design system transformed from being perceived as a rigid set of rules into open and shared project.

… and my mission complete.

Design system was no longer a bottleneck. The Figma library stayed updated, the documentation became accessible, and contributions from designers and developers across the company common. The Frog had leapt to its initial goals and became a thriving part of Adverity’s design and development culture.

Thank you the Legendary team of Design System.
It was my honor to serve with you.