Design System Alignment Program
Scaling trust, not just components.
Design Systems · DesignOps · FanDuel · 2024/25
Design Systems · DesignOps · FanDuel · 2024/25
Adoption was inconsistent across FanDuel's product verticals. Teams were working around the system rather than with it — not because the components were broken, but because the centralized model had become a bottleneck. Support felt distant, documentation felt generic, and designers were making decisions in isolation.
The fix wasn't more documentation. It was proximity.
I designed and led the Design System Alignment Program — a structured initiative embedding DS specialists directly into product teams through 12-week engagements.
The model ran in three stages: a listening period where embedded designers joined team rituals and uncovered real pain points; a hands-on collaboration period centered around working sessions, file audits, and co-creating solutions in context; and a structured exit focused on activating local champions so teams could sustain momentum without dependency.
To measure impact, we tracked three dimensions: perceived usability through an adapted System Usability Scale, component coverage through collaborative design audits, and team satisfaction through NPS. Each metric helped tell a different part of the story — adoption, quality, and trust.
Across 12 months and 5 product teams, design system coverage increased from 13% to 100% in two key verticals. The overall System Usability Score improved from 56 to 73. The program closed with an NPS of 64.3 and zero detractors.
One team scored the program at 25, and that honest outlier ultimately made the next iteration of the model stronger.
But the biggest shift wasn't in the numbers, though.
Teams stopped treating the design system as something external and started contributing back into it themselves. That's what shared ownership actually looks like.
