YouTube — Design System (Contract Role)
Role: Visual Designer (Design Systems)
Timeline: September 2022 — April 2024
Overview
During my contract with YouTube, I worked on enhancing an internal design system that served multiple product teams. The goal was to ensure consistency, accessibility, and efficiency across a wide range of user experiences. While the details and visual assets are protected under NDA, I can share the process and outcomes that made this work impactful.
My Role
I collaborated with product designers, engineers, and accessibility specialists to define reusable UI components, establish clear usage guidelines, and ensure that the system could scale for future needs. My responsibilities included:
Auditing existing components for consistency and accessibility.
Designing new system components aligned with brand principles.
Authoring documentation to guide adoption across distributed teams.
Partnering with engineers to ensure design feasibility and performance.
Goals & Challenges
Establish visual and interaction consistency across diverse product surfaces.
Improve accessibility compliance while maintaining brand identity.
Create documentation that was clear, usable, and adoptable by distributed teams.
Balance speed of delivery with the need for quality and maintainability.
Process & Approach
Audit & Analysis – Conducted a cross-product review to identify inconsistencies and common patterns.
Component Definition – Collaborate on abstract, reusable UI components that met multiple product needs.
Documentation – Authored usage guidelines, visual examples, and developer handoff notes to enable adoption.
Impact & Outcomes
Reduced duplicated design effort by creating shared assets for multiple teams.
Increased adoption of the design system across teams, leading to more consistent UI experiences.
Provided a scalable framework for future component additions.
Reflection
This project strengthened my skills in design systems thinking, accessibility, and cross-disciplinary collaboration. I learned the importance of balancing brand expression with functional consistency, and how documentation can make or break adoption in large organizations.