Trulia Experience Language

Built a shared design system language to unify a fragmented product and create infrastructure that extended across Zillow and outlasted my tenure.

ROLE

Senior UX Visual Designer

SCOPE

End-to-end design system leadership across web, mobile, and cross-product platforms

TEAM

Design Manager, Product Designer, UX Visual Designer, Design Technologist, Software Engineer

Reframing the problem

Teams lacked a shared language and documentation around the design system. The work shifted from enforcing a component library to making deploying a design system with modular code for all teams to consume.

Strategic Tenets

VP of Design at Trulia secured executive buy-in to roadmap the design system as a product initiative. These tenets aligned leadership's roadmap and product phasing, along with my recommendations for atomic methodology and system distribution.

01

Prioritize archetype pages

Start with high-traffic pages (Search, Property, Neighborhood) to demonstrate value quickly and build momentum.

02

Define experience attributes

Align on attributes so decisions have shared criteria across departments. Also gave the brand team a foundation to brief agencies on future rebrand work.

03

Foundation before component work

Build grid, typography, and spacing systems first. Components inherit consistency by default.

04

Distributed contribution

Enable engineers across pods to contribute. Scale the system without bottlenecking on the core team.

Product & Design Strategy

Defined four guiding pillars that became the north star for every tradeoff and kept the feedback focused

The key insight: users have about 5 seconds to see a design and have an emotional reaction. By distilling principles into discrete qualities, we could explore each one as a visual artifact individually—then evaluate whether it triggered the right response in that critical window.

01

Modular

Components that work independently and together across platforms and contexts.

02

Genuine

Honest, trustworthy information presentation that builds confidence.

03

Welcoming

Approachable for first-time buyers and experienced searchers alike.

04

Knowledgeable

Data-rich without overwhelming—surfacing insight, not just information.

05

Optimistic

Using clarity, lightness, and human language to make a complex, high-stakes journey feel achievable.

06

Reliable

Patterns behave the same everywhere so users can trust the system and focus on decisions, not the interface.

Design Workshop

PRODUCT VISION

Led workshops across SF and Seattle teams to define experience attributes that serve as guiding light for developing craft. Modular. Genuine. Welcoming. Knowledgeable. These attributes aligned six departments on what mattered, depersonalized feedback, and gave us shared criteria to resolve debates.

Design System

Built comprehensive documentation from atoms to organisms: typography, color systems (brand + UI grays), spacing scale, buttons, navigation patterns, input fields, filters, and cards. The goal was to make consistency automatic—engineers wouldn't need to make visual decisions per feature.

Applying the System

LOCAL INFO MODALS

Audited the Local Info modal on listing pages showing commute, crime, demographics, schools, and shop & eat data. Found inconsistent patterns across platforms. Applied atomic methodology to streamline. A/B tested toolbar changes to protect engagement, then consolidated across platforms.

Role & Scope

STRATEGY

Reframed problem from discipline gap to infrastructure gap

Defined experience attributes to guide decisions

Prioritized archetype pages by traffic and engagement

Extended system methodology to multiple Zillow products

EXECUTION

Audited entire product across platforms

Built foundational grid, typography, spacing systems and design tokens

Partnered with engineering to build in React

Implemented distributed contribution model

LEADERSHIP

Let cross-team workshops in SF and Seattle

Resolved stakeholder debates with shared design principles

Mentored junior designers on systems thinking

Results

DESIGN SYSTEM IMPACT

OUTCOME

AFTER

Design system adoption

100% across home, search, listings page, and neighborhood pages

Platform parity

Responsive web + native apps

Product reach

Foundation scaled across 4 Zillow products

Longevity

System still active years after tenure