Mock Image01 — Context
Summary
This project started with a harder task than writing code — convincing the team to strip out MUI, which had been adopted hastily early on, and rebuild from scratch. Internal tooling meant no one felt urgency to improve it, so I made the case on maintainability and future scalability. The component system I built is now scoped for expansion into a larger platform ecosystem.
02 — Challenge
Problem
The team had moved fast with MUI under deadline pressure, and customizing it to match the design specs had become a growing burden. Developers felt no urgency, since it was internal tooling, but designers wanted their specs matched — closing that gap was the first challenge. On top of that, development was running ahead of design before specs were finalized, so I had to independently define the folder structure, layout, and component architecture myself.
03 — Approach
What I Did
- Advocated for removing MUI entirely, making the case through maintainability and scalability. Arguments alone weren't enough, so I visually rendered how changing a single color variable would ripple across the whole screen. "Change navy-10 once, it updates everywhere" — seeing it made the case far faster than explaining it.
- Designed independent components (Button, Input, Select) with systematized variants. Separated component styles with Styled-Components and page layouts with SCSS — deliberately architected for reuse across future platforms.
- Owned structural decisions that neither design nor development formally defined, like where side-drawers mount, how repeated components nest, and how files are organized. Invisible work, but the kind that determines whether a codebase stays clean at scale.
- Worked side-by-side with a developer to validate STT accuracy and AI chat behavior in real time. When the AI's call-summary feature needed UI that didn't exist yet, like how a summary should surface visually mid-call, I defined those interactions together with the designer on the spot, without waiting for a spec.
04 — Outcome
Result
Delivered a design system of 20+ components that eliminated MUI dependency in favor of a fully custom system built for long-term maintainability. The system's reception led to leadership-level discussions about extending it into a larger platform ecosystem, and it's now reliably supporting subsequent AI chat and STT feature expansions.