new work
ReadyTech
•
Strategy
Research Ops
Rebranding and a new design system to drive it - Ready Student 🎨
new work
ReadyTech
•
Strategy
Research Ops
Rebranding and a new design system to drive it - Ready Student 🎨
new work
ReadyTech
•
Strategy
Research Ops
Rebranding and a new design system to drive it - Ready Student 🎨
OVERVIEW
Ready Student, a well-established product with a history of adding features to meet client needs, needed unification to support a bold new vision. Our design team reimagined the UX and UI with a design system at its core, taking an incremental approach and celebrating small wins along the way. 😊
Sped up ‘Idea to Hifi’ by ~1.5 wks
Removed 100+ inconsistencies
brought to life new brand & identity
OVERVIEW
Ready Student, a well-established product with a history of adding features to meet client needs, needed unification to support a bold new vision. Our design team reimagined the UX and UI with a design system at its core, taking an incremental approach and celebrating small wins along the way. 😊
Sped up ‘Idea to Hifi’ by ~1.5 wks
Removed 100+ inconsistencies
brought to life new brand & identity
Ready Student (formerly JR Plus) needed a refresh—it looked outdated, was hard to navigate, and lacked consistent design and logical structure.
Goal: Develop a fresh design vision to support the mid-2024 rebrand, enhance the UI and UX, and re-architect the product for scalability and performance.
Ready Student (formerly JR Plus) needed a refresh—it looked outdated, was hard to navigate, and lacked consistent design and logical structure.
Goal: Develop a fresh design vision to support the mid-2024 rebrand, enhance the UI and UX, and re-architect the product for scalability and performance.
Ready Student (formerly JR Plus) needed a refresh—it looked outdated, was hard to navigate, and lacked consistent design and logical structure.
Goal: Develop a fresh design vision to support the mid-2024 rebrand, enhance the UI and UX, and re-architect the product for scalability and performance.
Introducing design system is more then UI, its culture and vision too
Ready Student, built as a monolithic Ruby on Rails application, faced resistance from engineers to large-scale changes. At the outset, investing in front-end UI capabilities and dedicating time to this work wasn’t feasible, creating capacity and interest hurdles. The design team was small and new—I was the third hire, and my colleagues were just beginning to apply their recently acquired UX skills.
This remains one of the most complex projects I’ve tackled. Balancing numerous stakeholders, diverse opinions, and large-scale impacts has made introducing changes a significant challenge. As I often say, "We’re building the railway while the trains are running."
The good news? We’re growing our front-end capabilities, and every designer is contributing by establishing patterns and addressing unique challenges as they arise. While I don’t have all the answers yet—especially with my part-time focus on this amidst other priorities—we’re making steady progress! 😊
Introducing design system is more then UI, its culture and vision too
Ready Student, built as a monolithic Ruby on Rails application, faced resistance from engineers to large-scale changes. At the outset, investing in front-end UI capabilities and dedicating time to this work wasn’t feasible, creating capacity and interest hurdles. The design team was small and new—I was the third hire, and my colleagues were just beginning to apply their recently acquired UX skills.
This remains one of the most complex projects I’ve tackled. Balancing numerous stakeholders, diverse opinions, and large-scale impacts has made introducing changes a significant challenge. As I often say, "We’re building the railway while the trains are running."
The good news? We’re growing our front-end capabilities, and every designer is contributing by establishing patterns and addressing unique challenges as they arise. While I don’t have all the answers yet—especially with my part-time focus on this amidst other priorities—we’re making steady progress! 😊
Introducing design system is more then UI, its culture and vision too
Ready Student, built as a monolithic Ruby on Rails application, faced resistance from engineers to large-scale changes. At the outset, investing in front-end UI capabilities and dedicating time to this work wasn’t feasible, creating capacity and interest hurdles. The design team was small and new—I was the third hire, and my colleagues were just beginning to apply their recently acquired UX skills.
This remains one of the most complex projects I’ve tackled. Balancing numerous stakeholders, diverse opinions, and large-scale impacts has made introducing changes a significant challenge. As I often say, "We’re building the railway while the trains are running."
The good news? We’re growing our front-end capabilities, and every designer is contributing by establishing patterns and addressing unique challenges as they arise. While I don’t have all the answers yet—especially with my part-time focus on this amidst other priorities—we’re making steady progress! 😊
Owning small wins
First Achievement:
Secured leadership alignment on the initial design vision.
Selected Material UI (MUI) and React as the design system foundation.
Second Achievement:
Completed the first pass on foundations, styling, and components—even before a front-end engineer was hired.
Applied components in isolated, active products to refine patterns and mature the system during development.
Third Achievement:
Collaborated with the Head of Technology to define a new architecture using a Backend-For-Frontend approach, leveraging the existing API to mitigate risks of a full migration.
Began centralizing the design system into a front-end codebase as the single source of truth.
Next Goal:
Deliver an implementation strategy for the Ready Student Design System and assemble a small, agile team to enhance the core product’s UX and UI.
Owning small wins
First Achievement:
Secured leadership alignment on the initial design vision.
Selected Material UI (MUI) and React as the design system foundation.
Second Achievement:
Completed the first pass on foundations, styling, and components—even before a front-end engineer was hired.
Applied components in isolated, active products to refine patterns and mature the system during development.
Third Achievement:
Collaborated with the Head of Technology to define a new architecture using a Backend-For-Frontend approach, leveraging the existing API to mitigate risks of a full migration.
Began centralizing the design system into a front-end codebase as the single source of truth.
Next Goal:
Deliver an implementation strategy for the Ready Student Design System and assemble a small, agile team to enhance the core product’s UX and UI.
Owning small wins
First Achievement:
Secured leadership alignment on the initial design vision.
Selected Material UI (MUI) and React as the design system foundation.
Second Achievement:
Completed the first pass on foundations, styling, and components—even before a front-end engineer was hired.
Applied components in isolated, active products to refine patterns and mature the system during development.
Third Achievement:
Collaborated with the Head of Technology to define a new architecture using a Backend-For-Frontend approach, leveraging the existing API to mitigate risks of a full migration.
Began centralizing the design system into a front-end codebase as the single source of truth.
Next Goal:
Deliver an implementation strategy for the Ready Student Design System and assemble a small, agile team to enhance the core product’s UX and UI.