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Orbit Labs

Orbit Ops

A modular design system for an ops platform used daily by field teams—dense data, still human.

Role
Design System Lead
Year
2024
Timeline
5 months
Team
2 designers · 4 engineers · 6 product squads
Focus
Design System · SaaS · Desktop
Tools
Figma · Storybook · GitHub · Linear
Abstract server racks with cool lighting

01 — Overview

Context

Orbit Labs ran six product surfaces with diverging UI. The mandate was a shared system that could handle dense ops data without feeling like a spreadsheet dumped into a browser.

02 — Problem

The challenge

Squads shipped inconsistent patterns—six button styles, three table behaviors—slowing onboarding and inflating engineering debt and design QA.

02 — Goals

What success looked like

  • One token and component source of truth across apps
  • Documented patterns for tables, filters, and empty states
  • Adoption path that didn’t freeze feature work for a quarter

03 — Research

How we learned

Inventory of live UI, designer/engineer interviews, and a severity-ranked inconsistency audit across navigation, forms, and data display.

  1. Insight 01

    Tables are the product

    Most daily work lived in dense tables; cosmetics elsewhere mattered less than predictable row actions.

  2. Insight 02

    Docs beat dogma

    Teams ignored the library when guidance didn’t show when to use which pattern.

  3. Insight 03

    Migration must be incremental

    A big-bang rewrite was politically impossible; tokens-first unlocked gradual adoption.

04 — Process

Approach

  1. 01

    Audit

    Catalogued components and anti-patterns across six apps.

  2. 02

    Foundation

    Defined color, type, spacing, and elevation tokens with engineering.

  3. 03

    Core kit

    Shipped buttons, inputs, tables, and dialogs in Figma + Storybook.

  4. 04

    Govern

    Office hours, contribution guidelines, and a lightweight RFC process.

05 — Solution

What we designed

A modular system with tokens at the center, a tight core of high-traffic components, and written recipes for the ops patterns teams actually build every week.

  • 01Semantic tokens mapped to light/dark product themes
  • 02Data table recipe: selection, bulk actions, empty/loading
  • 03Contribution model so squads can extend without forking

Visuals

Hands collaborating over a laptop
Analytics charts on a monitor

06 — Results

Impact

A shared token and component library aligned surfaces across apps and cut design QA cycles while feature teams kept shipping.

6→1
Button variants consolidated
−40%
Design QA cycles on shared flows
4
Apps adopted core kit in 2 releases

07 — Reflection

What I’d carry forward

Systems succeed when they solve today’s screens, not an imagined future. Start with the densest, most reused patterns.