Full Scale UI Design System For Blockchain Social Platform

Full Scale UI Design System For Blockchain Social Platform

Full Scale UI Design System For Blockchain Social Platform

Calaxy Design System hero image - dramatic angled view of typography and spacing documentation screens demonstrating professional Figma design system architecture
Calaxy Design System hero image - dramatic angled view of typography and spacing documentation screens demonstrating professional Figma design system architecture
Calaxy Design System hero image - dramatic angled view of typography and spacing documentation screens demonstrating professional Figma design system architecture

PROJECT TYPE:

PROJECT TYPE:

Interface Design

Interface Design

CLIENT:

CLIENT:

Calaxy

Calaxy

LOCATION:

LOCATION:

Los Angeles

Los Angeles

DELIVERABLES:

DELIVERABLES:

Figma Design System

Figma Design System

STACK:

STACK:

Figma, Protopie, Storybook (Vue)

Figma, Protopie, Storybook (Vue)

Calaxy Design System hero image - dramatic angled view of typography and spacing documentation screens demonstrating professional Figma design system architecture

System Overview

The Calaxy Design System is a full scale, version controlled, production-grade design system built in Figma with an inventory of 1,943 components as of Calaxy App v1.7. The design system is home to 3 primary component types:


  1. UI Foundation (eg. Text, Buttons, Color, Input Fields)

  2. UI Modules (eg. Social Feed, Lists, Nav Bar)

  3. Assets (eg. Graphics, Badges, Background Images)

The system is architected using Brad Frost's Atomic Design Methodology, which breaks UIs into fundamental, reusable building blocks, starting with atoms (basic elements like buttons, icons, fonts — what I refer to as the "UI Foundation") that combine into molecules (functional groups like a social feed item - what I refer to as "Modules" in this system).

After building and managing this system with my lead technical designer for over 2 years, I can confidently say it leaves no stone unturned. It is a tour de force that articulates UI designs with pixel-perfect precision and serves as the critical backbone to Calaxy's small, nimble, elite product team.

Design system button component breakdown - detailed pixel specifications showing 44px height, 24px padding, and rounded-full border radius for Calaxy UI buttons in Figma
Design system button component breakdown - detailed pixel specifications showing 44px height, 24px padding, and rounded-full border radius for Calaxy UI buttons in Figma
Design system button component breakdown - detailed pixel specifications showing 44px height, 24px padding, and rounded-full border radius for Calaxy UI buttons in Figma
Calaxy Design System overview - comprehensive view showing button variants, brand color palette, and input component documentation for blockchain social platform UI kit
Calaxy Design System overview - comprehensive view showing button variants, brand color palette, and input component documentation for blockchain social platform UI kit
Calaxy Design System overview - comprehensive view showing button variants, brand color palette, and input component documentation for blockchain social platform UI kit

Managing Scale

The Calaxy app platform is a Progressive Web App built in vue.js (front end) comprised of 12 foundational product domains powering 112+ discreet functions made up of more than 282 user journeys across 2,000 individual app views. Driving design continuity across this much app surface area is an immense challenge.

I worked closely with my technical design lead to develop a UX design workflow that sought to maximize the proportion of existing DS components while minimizing the introduction of net new components with each successive design sprint. This approach helps actively avoid system bloat and the accumulation of technical debt. The design workflow contained both a "creative pass" completed by me, and a "technical pass" completed by my technical design lead.

Creative Pass:

The creative pass allowed me to rapidly design and test new features in high fidelity without worrying too much about technical constraints or engineering-handoff readiness. Given Calaxy is a product operating in a frontier domain (blockchain), this creative stage enabled me to experiment with + rapidly develop novel crypto-native design paradigms (like texting crypto and NFT gaslessly, without needing to copy/paste wallet addresses).

Technical Pass:

Once the creative pass was complete, the technical pass would tidy up the files, name layers, create new component inventory when needed, and markup the file with interaction notes that would be included in the engineering handoff. This approach enabled the Calaxy design team to operate at a design to engineering headcount ratio of 1:7 with lots of room to spare.

Calaxy app surface area visualization showing design system scope - 12 major sections, 104 discrete functions, 282 user flows, and 1,823 screens represented as color-coded blocks
Calaxy app surface area visualization showing design system scope - 12 major sections, 104 discrete functions, 282 user flows, and 1,823 screens represented as color-coded blocks
Calaxy app surface area visualization showing design system scope - 12 major sections, 104 discrete functions, 282 user flows, and 1,823 screens represented as color-coded blocks
Calaxy design system screen inventory breakdown - 1,823 UI screens organized by feature: Messages (542), Profile (362), Wallet (225), Home Feed (200), Worlds (161), and 7 additional modules
Calaxy design system screen inventory breakdown - 1,823 UI screens organized by feature: Messages (542), Profile (362), Wallet (225), Home Feed (200), Worlds (161), and 7 additional modules
Calaxy design system screen inventory breakdown - 1,823 UI screens organized by feature: Messages (542), Profile (362), Wallet (225), Home Feed (200), Worlds (161), and 7 additional modules
Calaxy design system function treemap - 104 discrete functions visualized by size showing Messages (19), Onboarding (16), Profile (15), Worlds (15), and Wallet (12) as largest feature areas
Calaxy design system function treemap - 104 discrete functions visualized by size showing Messages (19), Onboarding (16), Profile (15), Worlds (15), and Wallet (12) as largest feature areas
Calaxy design system function treemap - 104 discrete functions visualized by size showing Messages (19), Onboarding (16), Profile (15), Worlds (15), and Wallet (12) as largest feature areas
Calaxy Design System typography documentation - Nexa typeface for headings and Nexa Text for body copy with responsive web heading scales across SM, MD, and LG breakpoints
Calaxy Design System typography documentation - Nexa typeface for headings and Nexa Text for body copy with responsive web heading scales across SM, MD, and LG breakpoints
Calaxy Design System typography documentation - Nexa typeface for headings and Nexa Text for body copy with responsive web heading scales across SM, MD, and LG breakpoints
Calaxy Design System spacing documentation - standardized spacing scale from 4px to 176px with rem values, demonstrating systematic approach to UI component spacing in Figma
Calaxy Design System spacing documentation - standardized spacing scale from 4px to 176px with rem values, demonstrating systematic approach to UI component spacing in Figma
Calaxy Design System spacing documentation - standardized spacing scale from 4px to 176px with rem values, demonstrating systematic approach to UI component spacing in Figma
Calaxy Design System input component documentation - comprehensive properties table showing states, icon variants, labels, and pixel-level breakdown of input field anatomy
Calaxy Design System input component documentation - comprehensive properties table showing states, icon variants, labels, and pixel-level breakdown of input field anatomy
Calaxy Design System input component documentation - comprehensive properties table showing states, icon variants, labels, and pixel-level breakdown of input field anatomy
Calaxy Design System spinner components - loading indicator documentation showing 6 sizes (16px to 64px) across light, dark, primary, and secondary color variants
Calaxy Design System spinner components - loading indicator documentation showing 6 sizes (16px to 64px) across light, dark, primary, and secondary color variants
Calaxy Design System spinner components - loading indicator documentation showing 6 sizes (16px to 64px) across light, dark, primary, and secondary color variants
Figma design system component in action - Calaxy Messages screen showing search input component with variant properties panel for state, icon position, and character limit options
Figma design system component in action - Calaxy Messages screen showing search input component with variant properties panel for state, icon position, and character limit options
Figma design system component in action - Calaxy Messages screen showing search input component with variant properties panel for state, icon position, and character limit options
Figma component properties panel - Calaxy Messages list module with configurable state, type, timestamp, portal name, and admin group properties for rapid UI prototyping
Figma component properties panel - Calaxy Messages list module with configurable state, type, timestamp, portal name, and admin group properties for rapid UI prototyping
Figma component properties panel - Calaxy Messages list module with configurable state, type, timestamp, portal name, and admin group properties for rapid UI prototyping

Engineering Handoff Experience

A world class design system should not only maintain continuity within the design team, but also massively reduce or eliminate interpretive ambiguity during development. In the early versions of the design system, we were achieving about 75% implementation accuracy in vue.js, requiring an average of 3 design feedback loops on staging environments before shipping a feature to production.

Most of the disconnect was in the fine details, often leaving front end developers with the need to make on-the-fly design decisions which led to discontinuity (gaps) between the figma designs and implemented front end code. I wanted to get that implementation accuracy number as close to 100% as possible to reduce the number of feedback loops per sprint and with it, overall ship time.

To accomplish this, I worked closely with my technical design lead, and Calaxy front-end engineers to map the Figma design system in Storybook, which allowed us to achieve "pixel perfect" vue.js components in an isolated environment. This resulted in a dramatic reduction in feeback loops, and transformed the front end development process to a modular "lego block" implementation flow. All told, we reduced overall cycle ship times by 30%, with near 100% vue.js implementation accuracy.

Awwwards conference - slide showing design vs implementation gap concept with hand-drawn UI character illustrations
Awwwards conference - slide showing design vs implementation gap concept with hand-drawn UI character illustrations
Awwwards conference - slide showing design vs implementation gap concept with hand-drawn UI character illustrations
Design implementation accuracy diagram showing Storybook integration - engineering handoff workflow achieving 75% accuracy by expressing designs in code for pixel-perfect implementation
Design implementation accuracy diagram showing Storybook integration - engineering handoff workflow achieving 75% accuracy by expressing designs in code for pixel-perfect implementation
Design implementation accuracy diagram showing Storybook integration - engineering handoff workflow achieving 75% accuracy by expressing designs in code for pixel-perfect implementation
Design system to Storybook workflow - Figma input component variants alongside live Storybook documentation showing seamless design-to-development handoff for Calaxy UI
Design system to Storybook workflow - Figma input component variants alongside live Storybook documentation showing seamless design-to-development handoff for Calaxy UI
Design system to Storybook workflow - Figma input component variants alongside live Storybook documentation showing seamless design-to-development handoff for Calaxy UI

© 2025 Weston Media Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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DESIGN HOURS

$0

RAISED WITH MY PITCH DECKS

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HAPPY CLIENTs

© 2025 Weston Media Inc. All Rights Reserved.

0

DESIGN HOURS

$0

RAISED WITH MY PITCH DECKS

0+

HAPPY CLIENTs

© 2025 Weston Media Inc. All Rights Reserved.

0

DESIGN HOURS

$0

RAISED WITH MY PITCH DECKS

0+

HAPPY CLIENTs