Scaling Design with Systems, Not Stress

TL;DR

We faced growing inconsistency across teams, slow onboarding, and designers drained by repetitive QA cycles. I rebuilt our design playbook and redesigned the QA process into a structured, async system. The results: onboarding time cut by 51%, brand alignment doubled, QA rework reduced by 83%, and designers finally had time to focus on creative work.

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The Friction Behind the Scenes

As our design team expanded across streams and brands, small misalignments began stacking up:

• Designers used different standards, handoff methods, and file structures

• New team members had no central onboarding reference

• Senior designers were bogged down reviewing CMS pages that barely needed eyes

• Stakeholders were confused about when to expect what - and how to give feedback

The impact wasn’t loud, but it was persistent: slow ramp-up, inconsistent branding, and designer burnout.

Rewriting the Playbook

We needed a single source of truth - clear, accessible, and embedded into day-to-day work.

Here’s what we did:

• Ran sessions with leads to define shared processes and review points

• Created discipline-specific playbook sections for UX, visual, motion, and branding

• Linked everything to Figma templates, QA checklists, and project documentation

• Embedded the playbook into onboarding flows and team syncs

This wasn’t a “how to design” manual - it was an alignment framework.

Making QA Work for Designers, Not Against Them

QA had become a time sink. We restructured it to prioritize clarity and reduce unnecessary cycles.

Key improvements:

• Split QA into two parallel tracks: content and design

• Used automation to pre-sort and route tickets accordingly

• Shifted content teams to start with high-impact template pages first

• Introduced async checklists and submission tracking via Jira

• Trained leads to escalate visually meaningful issues, not minor formatting tweaks

The result: less duplication, less rework, and more time for actual design.

What Changed: Success Metrics

• Brand guideline adoption: Jumped from 46% to 92% after playbook rollout.

• Onboarding time for new designers: Dropped from 3.5 weeks to 1.7 weeks (51% reduction).

• Visual consistency across deliverables: Improved by 49%, based on internal audits.

• QA task reopen rate: Reduced from 18% to 3% (83% reduction).

• Brief-to-QA cycle time: Improved by 57% - faster design turnaround.

• Stakeholder satisfaction with QA process: Increased from 48% to 87% in internal feedback.