Wheels Unified Design System

Problem

Following the merger of Wheels, Donlen, and LeasePlan USA, teams were trying to move quickly while carrying three different UI histories. The problem was not only visual inconsistency; it was a lack of shared decision-making. Without clear boundaries, contribution rules, or design-to-code parity, every team had to re-argue the same choices. The business needed a principled operating model that could create unity without flattening every product need.

Discovery

• Audited overlapping UI histories across Wheels, Donlen, and LeasePlan USA to understand where inconsistency slowed product delivery
• Gathered input from product, engineering, marketing, and external agency partners to identify system gaps and governance needs
• Mapped design-to-code workflows across Figma, ThemeBuilder, Storybook, and Frontify to expose parity issues and repeated decisions

My Role

• Design System Steward: Owned system integrity, boundaries, and evolution across design, engineering, marketing, and external agency partners
• Governance Model Author: Defined where flexibility was healthy and where consistency needed to be protected, then held that line through documented rationale
• Bridge between design and engineering: Ensured 1:1 parity between Figma, ThemeBuilder, and Storybook across KendoReact and React Native Paper
• Documentation Lead: Translated system intent into usage principles, decision frameworks, and contribution guidelines teams could follow independently
• Mentor and culture builder: Guided designers through Figma migration and system adoption, raising UX maturity across the organization

Leadership & Impact

• Led and influenced product, engineering, marketing, and external agency partners across three merged companies without relying on direct reporting authority
• Changed the operating model from local UI opinions to system-level decision making with documented contribution rules and review criteria
• Mentored designers through Figma migration, component adoption, and system rationale so design quality could scale beyond one owner
• Made design system contribution explicit in product delivery by connecting reusable components to Figma, ThemeBuilder, Storybook, and Frontify documentation

Approach

• Migrated all designers to Figma and established contribution models for scalable growth
• Created Design System 1.0: Flexible Figma foundation to guide future implementations
• Built KendoReact System: 60+ components with feature-rich data grid, ensuring parity across Figma, ThemeBuilder, and Storybook
• Adapted React Native Paper System: Mobile-first design aligned with WCAG accessibility standards
• Developed centralized asset libraries: Icon and vehicle image libraries for consistency
• Documented comprehensive guidelines in Frontify with clear governance models

System architecture showing unified approach across frameworks

Outcomes

• Replaced fragmented legacy UI practices with a single enterprise design system spanning three merged organizations and multiple product surfaces
• Reduced implementation time by 50% by standardizing reusable component patterns, documentation, and decision frameworks engineering teams could apply directly
• Established system governance (boundaries, contribution workflow, and review criteria) that reduced off-system variance across product, marketing, and external agencies
• Embedded accessibility as a system property, reaching WCAG AA standards across core components instead of treating compliance as a late-stage project task
• Improved delivery predictability by creating parity across Figma, ThemeBuilder, and Storybook, lowering design-dev churn and post-release UI defects
• Raised cross-org UX maturity by giving teams a shared language for component decisions, scaling influence beyond any single squad

ThemeBuilder implementation ensuring design-development parity

Frontify documentation serving as single source of truth across teams

Tools & Technologies

Figma · KendoReact · React Native Paper · Kendo ThemeBuilder · Storybook · Frontify

Links