DESIGN SYSTEMS
A design system can become a piece of the organization’s culture, and ingrain customer centricity in non-designer stakeholders.
From 2021 to 2024, I had the honor of leading the Solar Design System for the Swiss telco provider Sunrise UPC. I also headed the UI kits that branched from it. During my tenure, the project went from embrionic stage to a central role for the organization.
IMPACT
- 41 k inserts / week (peak usage)
- 700 components and 65 styles
- Estimated 1.5M CHF of savings in 2023.
- 2-3x faster time to marked
- Up to 50% time saving on common patterns and journeys
Dive into my work in product design, entrepreneurship and visual design.
SOLAR DESIGN SYSTEM
2021 - 2024
MY ROLE
I had a multifaceted function, involving mostly UX leadership and team management.
The technical foundation of the design library was my responsibility, while being a direct line manager in the UX design team. In addition, I oversaw design reviews, ensured quality standards, and structured the hierarchy of variables to maintain adaptability.
Beyond design execution, I played a key role in establishing governance for the Solar Design System, aligning internal teams and setting development priorities with the project manager. Advocacy was also central to my work—I championed the system’s adoption, fostered collaboration, and ensured its successful integration across the organization.
While establishing the Solar Design System as a UX product, I strategised the creation of a DesignOps unit, laying foundations for formalising the internal infra-structure.
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In 2021, Sunrise and UPC merged to become the second-largest telecommunications company in Switzerland. To streamline digital initiatives and solidify the culture, Solar Design System had the mission of consolidating together all the different digital products previously created by two distinct companies.
To reach such goals, the Solar design system exists in 4 equally important pillars:
The code and design libraries make up the technical elements and form the component repository of the company. Users of Solar can find all documentation on how to use or not use each building block, and how to incorporate them in digital projects. Both libraries and documentation are available on solar.sunrise.net
The URL is accessible by Sunrise employees and external vendors and doesn’t require an invitation/VPN. This measure reduces the initial barriers to adoption among different stakeholders.
Obs: As the Solar website is not under my supervision, the URL might be discontinued. Please get in contact if you wish to see more.
DESIGN LIBRARY - THE CORE OF UX
The creation ot the design library, as well as its prioritization and quality assurance where my main responsibilities as the leader of the project. Together with a team of three designers, the library evolved constantly.
Consisting of style guidelines, components and patterns, the assets provided by my team were used by all the digital teams of the company, as well as by external vendors. The assets also served as inspiration to products managed by other internal bureaus and the B2B units.
Style specs of primary and secondary colors
ACCESSIBILITY
Web acessibility was always present in the crafting of Solar. First, due to a personal guiding principle of mine, as I am a firm believer of inclusion and diversity as a way to improve design. But also due to a strategic aspect, as I spotted the embrionic discussions in EU pointing to a mandatory rule for every consumer brand.
I kicked off a cooperation project at the University of Applied Sciences in Chur, in January 2023. A research team from the MSc. in User Experience Design analysed the current implementation of Solar in the Sunrise sales portal and compiled all the different elements of accessibility in a report. This document was used to craft the strategy of Solar in 2024. Findings were around several points of the accessibility spectrum, such as the information hierarchy, navigation with voice-over and keyboard as well as alt-text usage.
EVANGELISING
Crafting an exceptional design system is just the first step. The true magic happens when that system is embraced across the organisation. For excelling the adoption of Solar, I set up 3 different measures within my team:
1) Activating internal users → vote the name of the design system
For the design system to become more than a set of guidelines, it needed an identity. I initiated an open voting process for naming the system involving all stakeholders. This not only fostered a sense of ownership but also made the system more relatable and memorable to +200 voters. Also, the exercise provided interesting insights of who the responders were and how to conduct future communication with them.
2) Onboarding Integration → every new employee is presented to Solar
Recognising the importance of early adoption, I integrated the design system into the onboarding process for new employees. By making it an integral part of their introduction to the company, I ensured that the design system became essential to everyone in digital projects from day one.
3) Community Engagement → public speaking and networking
Actively participating in industry events. As a speaker in those events, I showcased the design system's impact and shared insights with the broader design community. As an attendee, I could exchange with peers and stay up to date on trends in the sector.
Making Solar the state-of-art of Sunrise guaranteed consistency and efficiency, enabled a better cross-functional collaboration and, mostly, unlocked the cultural impact of spreading a design-centric philosophy among the teams.
IMPACT
Since its creation, Solar Design System has become an integral part of Sunrise’s digital universe.
The weekly usage of design components has continuously increased within the internal design tool of Sunrise. The usage has peaked at almost 41k inserts/week. With little surprise, the lowest usage was registered during the summer and winter breaks, with some fluctuation according to seasonal cycles (e.g. Black Friday projects). The impact of the Solar Design System can also be captured by the number of users exposed to it. Again considering the internal design tool of Sunrise, almost 1.500 stakeholders are constantly in contact with the almost 700 components and 65 styles of Solar, having the design library available in 100% of new design files and collaborative boards.
There is a share of users and usage that is not captured at the moment. Those are represented by agencies that provide services to Sunrise. To that, the evidence is only through the direct exchanges with agencies.
When it comes to the financial impact, it is estimated that Solar brought 1.5 M CHF of savings to the company over the year 2023. The granular view cannot be published online, but rough numbers are as follows:
The weekly usage of design components has continuously increased within the internal design tool of Sunrise. The usage has peaked at almost 41k inserts/week. With little surprise, the lowest usage was registered during the summer and winter breaks, with some fluctuation according to seasonal cycles (e.g. Black Friday projects). The impact of the Solar Design System can also be captured by the number of users exposed to it. Again considering the internal design tool of Sunrise, almost 1.500 stakeholders are constantly in contact with the almost 700 components and 65 styles of Solar, having the design library available in 100% of new design files and collaborative boards.
There is a share of users and usage that is not captured at the moment. Those are represented by agencies that provide services to Sunrise. To that, the evidence is only through the direct exchanges with agencies.
When it comes to the financial impact, it is estimated that Solar brought 1.5 M CHF of savings to the company over the year 2023. The granular view cannot be published online, but rough numbers are as follows:
- Up to 50% time saving on common patterns and journeys
- Up to 50% reduction in future managed costs (by launching better products the first time)
- Up to 25% increased product development efficiency and efficacy
- 2-3x faster time to marked
- Up to 25% faster building functional prototypes
- Improved usability, trust and brand recognition with customer
SUNRISE UI KITS
2021 - 2024
MY ROLE
I coordinated the work with the UI Kits of Sunrise, defining priorities and managing the work of eventual contributors and deploying updates. Also under my responsibilities, the communication of new deploys and the connection between different users were centralised by me.
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As the Sunrise ecosystem became more complex with the rollout of the Solar Design System, an opportunity to refine UI elements became apparent. The diverse interfaces of applications were escaping the quality assurance of the design team. Even though components were widely shared, the UI was constantly adapted to serve the specific needs of that point of the user journey.
To remedy this, I kicked off a series of UI Kits. Tailored to the unique needs of specific cases, these kits were like personalised design assistants, allowing us to swiftly adapt the Solar Design System to meet the nuances of interfaces in the user journeys. They were developed closely with the teams that use the kit frequently, which contributes to a better result and raise adoption and awareness.
To date, two UI Kits are up and running (UI Kit for emails and UI Kit for Mobile Apps) and one is in the pipeline for development (UI Kit for My Sunrise).
Dive into my work in product design, entrepreneurship and visual design.