Beyond BAU
Things I built because they were getting in my way, or the team's. Figma plugins, a research sprint, an AI assistant for our design system. Mostly small, mostly nobody asked.
Comment Analyzer Plugin
The Problem
After a heavy review, a Figma file is a few hundred loose comments. Someone has to read all of them and work out which are bugs, which are copy, and which are questions.
What was built
A Figma plugin that reads the comments and files them by type and priority — UI bug, copy fix, open question.
Outcome
Took about 40% off the time spent sorting a critique.
Design Decision Log
The Problem
Why a design changed lives in a Slack thread or an old Figma version. Six months later nobody can find it, so the same argument gets had again.
What was built
A plugin that lets you write the reason down on the canvas, and pushes it to Notion and GitHub at the same time.
Outcome
New designers and developers stopped having to ask why things ended up the way they did.
Design System Research
The Problem
Progress had stalled despite a complete component library, but nobody had evidence for why.
What was done
Nobody asked for this — I ran it as a self-initiated research sprint before proposing any redesign, because "velocity feels stalled" isn't evidence.
Outcome
Became the evidence base for the Transforming a Design System case study — full findings and the redesign are there.
Team Personality Workshop
The Problem
The team got bigger and critiques got worse. The same feedback, delivered the same way, was landing completely differently depending on who was hearing it.
What was done
Ran a workshop off the back of Surrounded by Idiots, with a survey beforehand to map how each person prefers to be talked to.
Outcome
Leadership got the profiles and used them to rethink how the teams were put together. Critiques got easier almost immediately.
Design System Assistant Agent
The Problem
Design values, content rules and accessibility requirements live in three different places. Checking all three every time is slow, so people stop checking.
What was built
An assistant loaded with the component, content and accessibility specs. Upload a screen and it tells you what's off; ask it a question and it answers from the actual docs.
Outcome
Tested with 10 designers. It gave back roughly 30% of the time they had been losing to looking things up.