08Busuu
One system for designers, engineers and every Busuu product.
A shared process, language and governance model that reduced duplication and brought product teams together.
- My role
- Lead Product Designer
- Industry
- Education technology
- Focus
- Design systems, Design and engineering
- Scope
- Global B2C, internal and B2B products
The short version
The case in three moves.
- Challenge
- Duplicate design work, bloated code libraries and mismatched terminology created slow releases and a disjointed experience.
- Leadership
- I made the cost visible, designed a cross-discipline process, established system captains and aligned naming, governance and roadmaps.
- Outcome
- The system became standard across product teams, improved consistency across B2C and B2B, and made it easier to move people between teams and reuse components.
01 / Problem
The component gap was really a collaboration gap.
Designers duplicated work and rebuilt components from inconsistent sources. Engineers navigated bloated libraries, while live components, Figma components and the language used to describe them did not match.
The result was slower delivery, avoidable confusion between disciplines and an experience that felt disjointed to customers.
02 / Evidence
Show the cost across the whole delivery system.
I laid out the product’s inconsistencies and connected them to funnel data and known qualitative pain points. Cross-discipline retrospectives then exposed engineering problems including code-library bloat, terminology mismatches and late collaboration.
That evidence created a stronger case than visual inconsistency alone: a design system could improve the customer experience and the economics of delivery.
03 / Governance
Create shared ownership at every level.
Working with engineering representatives from each platform, I designed a process that fitted existing delivery rather than competing with it. The original group became system captains, meeting regularly and cascading decisions to their disciplines.
A RACI clarified product-team responsibilities, a shared Slack channel made changes and questions visible, and naming conventions created the common language needed before deeper component guidance could work.
04 / Foundation
Build for today while making the debt legible.
I created a skeleton Figma library of live components with a traffic-light status system, a Jira backlog for missing guidance and global changes, and a roadmap covering the components needed over the following year.
The system became fully used across product teams. Consistency improved across core, internal and B2B experiences; designers and engineers could move between teams with less disruption; and reuse in Figma and code increased delivery speed.
