The Challenge
Multiple teams were building similar UI components independently, leading to inconsistent user experiences and duplicated effort. We needed a unified design system that could be adopted across all products.
My Role
I was the primary engineer responsible for:
- Building the component library from scratch
- Creating comprehensive documentation in Storybook
- Writing unit and accessibility tests
- Supporting adoption across teams
Technical Approach
Foundation
We built the system on top of Radix UI primitives, which provided:
- Accessible components out of the box
- Unstyled components that we could customize
- Composable patterns for complex components
Styling Strategy
Tailwind CSS was chosen for styling because:
- Utility-first approach aligned with our design tokens
- Easy to customize and extend
- Great TypeScript support with tailwind-merge
- Small bundle size with purging
Documentation
Every component includes:
- Interactive examples in Storybook
- API documentation with TypeScript types
- Accessibility guidelines
- Usage do's and don'ts
Implementation Highlights
Component Categories
- Primitives - Button, Input, Select, Checkbox
- Layout - Container, Grid, Stack, Divider
- Navigation - Tabs, Breadcrumb, Pagination
- Feedback - Alert, Toast, Progress, Skeleton
- Data Display - Table, Card, Avatar, Badge
Testing Strategy
- Unit tests with Testing Library
- Visual regression tests with Chromatic
- Accessibility audits with axe-core
- Cross-browser testing with Playwright
Results
- 40% reduction in development time for new features
- Consistent UI across 5 different products
- Zero accessibility violations in automated audits
- High adoption rate with positive developer feedback