2021
Gett.UI
Design System
Gett's Enterprise UI was a collection
of conflicting patterns. Five teams used seven different date pickers, and accessibility was an afterthought.
We replaced this chaos with a unified design system. The result: 90% adoption in six months, a 40% faster feature development cycle, and an 80% reduction in accessibility bugs.
Industry
B2B GTM
Role
Enterprise Design Lead
What It Does
Gett.UI is the foundational design system created to unify the fractured UI across all of Gett's enterprise products (spanning Accounting, Infrastructure, B2B SaaS, and Security). It replaced inconsistent patterns with a single source of truth for components, tokens, and documentation.
Problems
Cost of Inconsistency: Feature development was 40% slower due to redundant UI work.
Accessibility Debt: Last-minute WCAG failures derailed schedules.
Operational Chaos: New hires faced confusion with 5+ teams using 7 different date pickers.
Actions
Started with a focused MVP of 20 universal core components to prove value and build trust. Established a lightweight, collaborative governance model with engineering to scale the library into a comprehensive suite of components, patterns, and templates used across the entire enterprise ecosystem. Made WCAG 2.1 AA compliance and robust documentation non-negotiable features.
Results
Accelerated feature development by 40%.
Achieved 90% adoption across product teams in six months.
Reduced accessibility bugs by 80%.
Freed 200+ engineering hours per month from rebuilding interfaces.
Scaled a trusted system from a core foundation to the standard language for all product development, enabling consistent quality at scale.
Gett's Enterprise UI had become a collection of conflicting patterns. Five different teams used seven different date pickers. Accessibility was treated as an afterthought, with contrast ratios often overlooked. Documentation relied on tribal knowledge, where "Ask George" was not a scalable strategy.
The cost was real. Engineers kept rebuilding the same modals while designers repeatedly specified the same buttons.
Finding the Center
We began by listening. Engineers were tired of rebuilding the same modals. Designers were exhausted from specifying the same buttons again and again. The opportunity was clear: replace inconsistency with a system that accelerated work instead of adding bureaucracy.
The Inconsistency Tax
Feature development moved 40 percent slower due to redundant UI work. WCAG failures triggered last-minute refactors that derailed schedules. New hires faced confusion, constantly asking which version of which component they should use.
The Clear Opportunity
Stakeholders agreed that scaling required standards. Our challenge was proving a design system could actually speed up work without adding bureaucracy, and preserve flexibility without stifling innovation.
Starting With
Universal Needs
We started with the atoms of the interface: twenty core components like buttons and text inputs. These were
the parts everyone used but no one agreed on. Our guiding principle was elegantly simple: if three teams needed it, it was in. We let the collective need of the products dictate our priorities, listening to what the work itself required.
We refused to become gatekeepers. We created a simple process where any team could propose new components to start a conversation.
The breakthrough came when we made engineers collaborators, not just implementers. Involved from the earliest sketches, their focus on the practical API was crucial. They challenged our assumptions, pressed on edge cases, and ensured our clean concepts worked flawlessly in practice.
Baking In Accessibility
We made WCAG 2.1 AA compliance non-negotiable. Every component launched with contrast-checked color tokens, keyboard navigation for complex patterns, and error states that actually helped users understand what went wrong.
Treating Documentation
as a Feature
We made Storybook our single source of truth. It housed usage guidelines with real copy examples, visual anti-patterns showing what not to do, and developer API specs covering all edge cases.
The Wisdom We Gained
Starting small with core components built trust for more ambitious phases.
Taking an API-first approach meant developers helped shape components they would actually use.
Choosing progress over perfection prevented rigid standards from killing adoption.
Although we underestimated how much legacy tech debt would resist refactoring. Some ideal patterns we designed needed adjustment based on real-world usage.
The New Reality
40 percent faster development as teams stopped reinventing interfaces, 90 percent adoption in six months through careful prioritization
80 percent fewer accessibility bugs by building compliance in from the start. Engineers celebrated handoffs, noting they finally received specs that anticipated edge cases
One year later, new hires onboard with the simple direction that everything lives in Gett.UI. Features now ship with pre-audited accessibility. Teams spend their time solving meaningful problems rather than pushing pixels on buttons.
The best design systems multiply effort instead of dictating it. By focusing on reuse without rigidity and standards without stagnation, we transformed inconsistency from a tax into an accelerator that helps everyone move faster.
Rebuilding the same buttons?
I help teams create shared systems that accelerate development. Let's talk.