How I established the research, processes, roadmaps, and shared design foundations needed to evolve a seven-product-line SaaS portfolio.
The starting point
When I joined Modern Campus, the product design function consisted of one junior designer who had transitioned from Sales and was working under a VP. There wasn't an established design practice or shared framework for working across the product portfolio.
Rather than immediately redesigning individual products, I started by understanding the ecosystem we already had.
01 — Establishing a baseline
I audited the existing products to understand what had already been built and establish a baseline across the portfolio.
The audit helped surface existing patterns, inconsistencies, opportunities for reuse, and areas where products had evolved independently.
02 — Creating structure for design
Before creating consistency across the products, we needed consistency in how designers worked.
I introduced structure within Figma so files and pages were organized more predictably, established shared documentation and working conventions, and began creating the foundation of a global design system.
03 — Figuring out where to begin
With a large portfolio, we couldn't redesign everything at once.
We gathered feedback from users and internal stakeholders and created roadmaps for each product. Combined with what we'd learned through the initial audit, those roadmaps gave us a way to triage the portfolio and prioritize where design could have the greatest impact.
04 — Building a shared foundation
As we began addressing roadmap priorities across products, we needed a shared design foundation rather than solving the same interaction and UI problems repeatedly.
The global design system grew out of those needs and created reusable patterns designers and developers could apply across the portfolio.
Today, that system is being used to support the modernization of applications across the ecosystem.
05 — What changed
What began as a fragmented portfolio with little shared design infrastructure became a more structured design practice with common standards, reusable patterns, clearer product priorities, and a system that could scale beyond any one designer.
The work created a foundation for product teams to modernize independently without reinventing the same patterns—and gave design a way to influence a seven-product portfolio without becoming a bottleneck.
Where’s the product design?
My role still includes hands-on product design. I work most deeply within Connected Curriculum, where I help define product architecture and personally design complex workflows and foundational experiences.
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02 — Building a Connected Product Foundation