Ambry
·
Collections software for museums
Design system
Year
2025
Role
Design system design and React library
Duration
16 weeks
01 · The brief
Every team rebuilt the same table. Curators use all four of our products in one afternoon, and they feel like four different companies.
Constraints
Four products, three front-end teams, no system owner
WCAG 2.2 AA required by public museum clients
No freeze on feature work during the move
02 · Design
What I decided, and why
01
Start with the table, not the button.
Collection records live in tables. Fixing them first won the teams over.
02
Tokens before components.
Shared color and spacing tokens let each product move at its own pace.
03
Docs for engineers, not a showcase.
Every component page opens with the code to copy.
03 · Build
Stack
React, TypeScript, Radix primitives, Style Dictionary, Storybook, Chromatic
What the team kept
A versioned npm package, a contribution guide, and two engineers trained to own it.
04 · Result
What changed
120
components in use across 3 product teams, one quarter after release
0
open WCAG AA issues at handoff, down from 63
−40%
front-end time on new screens, team estimate after two sprints
Remix FREE