Hotjar

Lead Product Designer - Design Systems

Working closely with the co-founder and a small team of developers, we setup foundations to help implement their first Design System and re-brand Hotjar for the first time in 7 years. This was a huge shift in not only product, but in company culture.

We were gearing up for a switch from Angular to React, so we pitched the Design System as a handy tool to streamline the process. We tailored components specifically for React, helping teams migrate faster. We synced our migration with Hotjar's rebrand, using design tokens to seamlessly introduce in our new brand without causing disruptions. To keep our documentation open and accessible, we set up Zeroheight and Storybook, with Zeroheight as our source of truth. Weekly Office Hours meetings became a place where anyone could drop in to chat about bugs, features, or general questions around contribution. We made sure to share recaps in our Slack channel, keeping everyone in the loop.

Managed Design System team

Working with our co-founder and Principal designer, I led a team of 4 engineers to implement our new Design System, the first one in Hotjar's 7 year history.

Cross functional alignment with stakeholders

We coordinated the launch of our new brand with the ongoing React migration, coordinating timeline management and consistent communication across all teams to ensure seamless coordination and alignment.

Crafted documentation and team rituals

I established weekly Office Hours to address inquiries related to the Design System, providing a platform for open discussion. Additionally, I initiated peer design sessions, creating a collaborative environment for brainstorming new components and features.

Optimized Figma workflow

I spent a lot of time optimizing Hotjar's Figma setup to improve designers' day to day functions. I also collaborated with engineers to ensure design hand-offs went as smoothly as possible.