Design Systems · edX Enterprise
Scaling design foundations for edX Enterprise
As edX Enterprise expanded its partnerships, brand consistency eroded, screens took too long to produce, and design drifted from what could be built. I led a lean, adoption-first system that brought teams back into alignment.
Role
Senior Design Systems Manager
Company
edX Enterprise
Partners
Design, Product, Engineering
Focus
Figma system, design-to-code parity
Results
14%
gain in design efficiency and turnaround
~100%
adoption, driven by value rather than mandate
Faster
QA and developer handoff through design-to-code parity
The problem
Inconsistency was compounding.
The challenge wasn’t a lack of talent. It was the absence of shared foundations.
Designers spent too much time recreating common UI patterns
UX quality varied with team and timeline pressure
Design decisions didn’t always translate cleanly into code
Inconsistencies slowed QA and eroded confidence in the work
My approach
Shared understanding before shared components.
I treated this as an organizational alignment problem more than a tooling exercise.
Ran team audits, stakeholder interviews, and hands-on workshops to find where a system would help most
Partnered with cross-functional leaders to frame the system as less friction, not more rules
Set goals around cohesion, faster execution, UX quality, and design-development alignment
What we built
Lean first, then scale.
A core component and pattern library in Figma, aligned with WordPress implementation constraints
Shared expectations for how components behave, not just how they look
Workshops aligning designers, PMs, and developers on usage and intent
Training sessions and a dedicated Slack channel for feedback and iteration
The system evolved with real usage, balancing consistency with creative flexibility.
Results
A shared language across design and development.
Design efficiency improved by roughly 14%
QA and developer handoff became faster and more predictable
Designers reclaimed time for UX quality and conversion work
Adoption trended toward 100%, earned through demonstrated value
Key learnings
What I’d tell any team starting a system.
Cross-functional buy-in is essential
Start lean, then scale: high-impact foundations beat exhaustive coverage
Structure should enable creativity, not dull it
Next, the system is expanding with stronger accessibility standards and more flexibility for edge cases.