When I joined Relias in 2020, I was excited by the chance to work on products supporting healthcare professionals—and by the opportunity to help a UX practice grow into the needs of a large product organization.
Build a team, not just headcount
We started with a small UX group and grew into a substantially larger design and research organization. The point was not simply to add people. It was to create shared standards and enough flexibility to support very different product needs.
We organized around B2B and B2C product areas, while retaining common practices, collaboration, and opportunities to learn from one another.
A design system should help teams solve a problem once, then apply that solution reliably wherever it belongs.
Make design scalable
A design system was an important part of that work. The aim was to solve repeatable interface problems once, build accessible components, and work closely with engineering so the results were as reliable in code as they were on screen.
We also needed to introduce improvements incrementally, without requiring the entire product portfolio to change at once.
Leadership is connective work
Serving on the product leadership team gave me a chance to connect UX priorities with product strategy. Just as important was making sure researchers, designers, engineers, product managers, and marketing colleagues could work toward compatible outcomes.
The most satisfying part was not any single artifact. It was helping the organization develop a stronger ability to make and execute product decisions.