sallie mae
Owning Sallie Mae’s design system to deliver cohesive, scalable, and future-ready digital experiences across the organization.
As the steward of Sallie Mae’s digital experience, I own the design system that powers every digital touchpoint. From initial concept through UX, UI, visual design, and production, this living atomic library ensures consistency, scalability, and efficiency across all platforms—enabling teams to deliver cohesive, impactful experiences across the organization, now and into the future.
Research
Color Audit
Color is crucial in design systems because it significantly influences user perception, brand identity, and overall usability. Consistent use of color helps establish a cohesive visual language, making interfaces more intuitive and accessible. It reinforces brand recognition and evokes specific emotional responses, enhancing user engagement. Additionally, color differentiation aids in organizing information, guiding users through interactions, and improving readability.
By thoughtfully integrating color into design systems, designers create more effective, user-friendly, and visually appealing experiences.
Typography Audit
Typography is vital in design systems because it directly impacts readability, user experience, and brand identity. Consistent use of typefaces, fonts, and styles ensures that text is legible and accessible across various devices and platforms, enhancing overall usability. Typography also plays a key role in conveying brand personality and tone, reinforcing the visual identity and creating a cohesive aesthetic.
By standardizing typographic elements, design systems promote clarity, guide user interactions, and maintain a uniform look and feel, contributing to a more professional and engaging user experience.
Mood Boards
Moodboards are essential because they visually capture and communicate the essence of a design concept, setting a clear direction for creative projects. By consolidating colors, textures, typography, and imagery, moodboards help align team members and stakeholders on a unified vision. They serve as a valuable reference tool throughout the design process, ensuring consistency and coherence while providing a tangible representation of abstract ideas.
This clarity fosters more effective collaboration and helps prevent deviations from the intended aesthetic.
Launches
Front Door
For years, my team reimagined Sallie Mae’s homepage, balancing user needs, brand expression, and technical constraints to deliver a clear, engaging, and impactful experience built on the new design system. The greatest challenge wasn’t the design—it was bringing executives along on the journey and securing alignment at every stage.
By thoughtfully integrating interactive tools such as calculators, animation and video, and leveraging generous white space, we crafted a visually compelling, intuitive, and cohesive digital experience.
AXP Landing page
We transformed user engagement into measurable outcomes by addressing a 64% drop-off rate through a landing page redesign focused on improving the user experience. In just four weeks, we took the project from concept through design, testing, development, and launch.
Guided by a clear hypothesis, we simplified language and context around what customers were applying for—resulting in a more intuitive experience that drove higher pull-through rates and meaningful business impact.
Product Pages
Managing complex products can be challenging, but implementing a robust design system transforms that complexity into a seamless and rewarding experience. By capturing the nuances of each product and giving them a clear voice, the design system allowed our offerings to connect meaningfully with users.
Consistency, familiarity, and thoughtful storytelling became our tools to build trust, elevate the experience, and create a cohesive, engaging brand across every interaction.
Birds eye view
A robust design system—fully ADA-compliant (AA) and tokenized with CSS—was implemented across multiple products, platforms, and technology stacks to deliver a unified, accessible, and future-proof experience. By establishing a single source of truth, the system streamlined design and development workflows, reduced redundancy, and accelerated time-to-market. The result was a seamless, cohesive customer journey that not only reinforced brand consistency but also improved usability, accessibility, and overall product quality at scale.
