Relaunching the STUDS design system at Simpson Strong-Tie

Stabilize the system and the team around it

My role was to relaunch STUDS, close the most important design and development gaps, and make the operating process visible. The work also had to support the company's longer term digital strategy.

I started with product teams and stakeholders. I listened for their goals, constraints, and measures of success before setting the strategy and backlog.

Make the work easier to follow

• Strategy: I turned the listening sessions into a design system strategy tied to the needs of the product teams and the company's digital work.
• Operations: I led day to day design, development, and Agile ceremonies for STUDS. Weekly Loom videos and sprint reviews made progress and decisions easier to see.
• Shared practice: I wrote standard operating procedures and helped restructure design reviews so teams could see the work earlier and give useful feedback.
• Technical direction: I led parallel React and Blazor component work, moved the system to Helvetica Now, and set a design token strategy to keep design and development aligned across platforms.
• Team growth: I coached designers in systems thinking, accessibility, and visual design. Book clubs and training sessions gave the team a regular place to keep learning.

Leave behind a system people could run

• STUDS relaunched and was adopted across multiple product teams.
• Shared components and a clearer process reduced friction between design and development.
• Designers became more independent in systems thinking, accessibility, and visual design.
• The work gave UX a clearer role in Simpson Strong-Tie's 2030 digital strategy.

The useful result was not a launch. It was a system the organization could keep using and a team better able to run it.