System makers
Build, maintain, distribute, document and govern the system as it changes.
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InVision Design System Manager
Redefining an early-stage product around the people, workflows, and tools that make design systems work.
Building the next chapter of DSM
When I joined InVision in 2018, Design System Manager (DSM) was a young product born from an acquisition. The need for design systems was growing, but the right product experience was still taking shape.
I led design for DSM, guiding a fully distributed team through a complete overhaul of the experience. The work extended beyond product execution: I helped define the opportunity, align the organization around a direction, and bring that direction to market.
The challengeFind product-market fit in an emerging space and make a collection of design system tools feel like one coherent experience.
My contributionLed customer understanding, strategy communication, the experience vision, and design direction across the product ecosystem.
The resultA fundamental shift in the product model, followed by launch outcomes that met or exceeded targets.
Understanding the work behind design systems
Research with hundreds of system makers and users, along with competitive analysis and close collaboration with InVision’s consulting and customer-facing teams, revealed two distinct audiences with interconnected needs.
System users
Apply trusted components and guidance in the tools where they design and develop products.
The opportunity was larger than storing reusable assets. It involved supporting the ongoing, cross-functional lifecycle of a design system.
Exposing the handoffs and inefficiencies
I mapped the activities that happen as teams onboard, adopt, use, contribute to, and update a design system. Looking across roles and stages exposed manual work, fragmented handoffs and opportunities that a product could meaningfully support.
What the mapping changed: It gave us a shared view of the full workflow and helped shift the product conversation from individual capabilities to connected experiences.
The design system lifecycle
Mapping the recurring work between creating, consuming, and evolving a system exposed the gaps between roles and tools.
Onboard & discoverFind the system and understand its rules
Use & checkApply assets and validate alignment
ContributePropose, design and code changes
Publish & releaseDocument and distribute updates
EvolveMaintain quality and manage change
Simplified from the original lifecycle framework and customer journey mapping.
Making the strategy understandable
To build alignment on DSM’s strategy, I created frameworks that made the design systems space tangible to stakeholders who were less familiar with it. These helped us articulate both what teams needed and where DSM could provide value.
Define the systemClarify the foundations, components, code, guidelines and governance teams need to connect.
Understand maturityShow how needs shift from creating a library to distributing and governing a system.
Position the platformExplain how DSM could connect teams and source tools throughout that lifecycle.
Connecting the framework to the product opportunity
The maturity model helped position DSM as more than a library manager. A team just getting started needed education and foundational capabilities; a mature team needed distribution, governance, synchronization and visibility across disciplines.
Alongside frequent leadership conversations, these models helped secure executive support to invest in DSM as part of InVision’s broader platform.
First, establish a shared definition
Design systems are not simply component libraries. This model helped leaders see the broader collection of foundations, assets, code, documentation and governance that teams need to maintain together.
Then show where DSM creates value
The platform model made the strategy tangible: design sources, code sources and system management needed to connect, without asking people to abandon the tools they already used.
Establishing a vision that led to a product pivot
Rather than moving straight into a roadmap, I led a vision process to align the team on an ideal future experience. I synthesized research, facilitated ideation and guided the team in creating a vision that could inform concrete product decisions without prematurely designing every detail.
From product to platform
Our vision extended beyond improving how teams created and documented design systems. We envisioned DSM as a connected platform that could support teams at every stage of maturity, from learning and establishing their first system to distributing components, synchronizing design and code, and measuring adoption.
At a time when design system tools largely addressed isolated pieces of that workflow, this was a fundamentally broader ambition: one platform that could grow with a team’s needs and connect the work of system makers and users.
The critical decision: work with customers’ tools, not around them
DSM initially relied on a proprietary Sketch plugin for designers to define and use styles and components. As Sketch’s native Libraries evolved, customer feedback made it clear that DSM should augment those libraries instead of competing with them.
DSM-centered asset workflows
Designers managed system assets through DSM’s dedicated Sketch plugin.
Native-library-centered workflows
DSM extended Sketch Libraries with the distribution, documentation and management experiences teams still needed.
This was not a small feature adjustment. It affected nearly every product surface. In partnership with Product and Engineering, I helped translate the vision into phased initiatives and a minimum valuable product, then refine the new model through alpha and beta programs.
Directing one experience across multiple surfaces
DSM needed to work for different users in different tools while still feeling like one platform. I directed design across the ecosystem, with responsibility for coherence, quality and cross-team connections.
How I kept the team aligned
Weekly critiqueCreated a shared forum for a distributed team to challenge solutions and understand work happening across surfaces.
Connecting the journeysUsed end-to-end maps, principles and recurring questions to expose cross-product dependencies and inconsistencies.
Visual coherencePartnered with InVision’s Creative Director and internal design system team to create a consistent experience language.
A stronger product, with measurable adoption
The revamped DSM launch met or exceeded its target metrics.
20%Week-over-week usage growth
2×New-to-active user rate
+20Product NPS improvement
What this work demonstrates
Leading design on an early-stage product meant doing more than defining screens. My contribution was making a complex domain understandable, creating organizational alignment around the right opportunity and giving a distributed team the direction to turn that strategy into an integrated experience.