Tiff Roberts: Design Systems Designer
Tiff Roberts worked on and led design system efforts at Chase, Wells Fargo, and CNN
I sat down with Tiff Roberts, former design systems designer at CNN, Wells Fargo, and Chase to discuss her journey into design systems. She dives into her experience in scaling, managing, and maintaining design systems and gives advice to designers looking to break into the field.
Josh: So, Tiff—tell me, how did you get into design systems and what do you love most about working with them?
Tiff: Well, I actually started out in product design. I did some web production, then moved into a PM role for a bit. I worked at Schwab, then Razorfish for a while, and then in 2013, I joined Chase Bank. That was my first real design system gig, where I put together specs and guidelines. After that, I pivoted back into traditional product design for a couple of years and then decided to return to design system work at Chase.
Josh: Oh wow, what made you switch back?
Tiff: At the time, I realized I missed the structure and clarity of design systems—the black-and-white nature of things like auditing design, determining components, writing specs and building the system. Plus, I was excited about all the new ideas happening in the field and companies wanting to get on board. So, in 2017, I went back to Chase to work on their design system. As you know, it’s been a lot of new uncharted territory—there’s always so much to figure out, and it really forces you to think end-to-end in a new way.
Josh: And most recently, you were a principal designer on the Vossi Design System for CNN. What were your main responsibilities there?
Tiff: I joined the CNN product design team in 2022, and Vossi was still pretty new. My main job was to build and scale for new design system processes. One of my very first tasks was migrating from Sketch to Figma, and moving the documentation out of GitHub and into Zeroheight. Fortunately, these first initiatives went quickly and were really helpful to other teams.
Previously, I had led the design system doc site strategy for Wells Fargo and wanted to help introduce something similar at CNN. So, I also set up the intake and governance model, facilitated office hours, collaborated with different teams, and introduced new ceremonies like design check-ins and syncs within the design system team.
It was just me as the only individual contributor for the first six months, but eventually, I helped grow the team and we added two more designers. We didn’t have dedicated design system engineers at first; we borrowed from other teams for about a year until we finally got one. And we also brought on a dedicated project manager as well as content writers.
Josh: Sounds like you had your hands full! What was the state of the system when you joined?
Tiff: It was pretty early stages. We had some design tokens and maybe around 20 components, which eventually grew to about 40. And the light documentation on GitHub had to be moved to a more accessible new doc site location right away.
Josh: What were the biggest initiatives you tackled on that system?
Tiff: We focused on building out the core web kit in Figma and then expanding to mobile, audio, video and TV assets. I contributed to design audits, component building, tokens, patterns, as well as dark mode support which was super exciting. As we did this work we also had to take into account platforms like Apple TV, Roku, and others. Plus, we were working on building a custom Figma plugin.
Josh: What were some of the challenges you faced?
Tiff: We had a pretty lean team, which meant we often had to be flexible. Sometimes, we’d have other designers contribute to Vossi and do about 80% of the new intake work, and we’d take the final 20% to the finish line. Other times, it might be more of a 50/50 split, or we’d build it ourselves. We were also trying to build a mature hybrid contribution process and set up a proper intake process through our doc site and Jira, and organize the backlog.
Josh: Got it. So what’s next for you?
Tiff: I really enjoy leading processes and the vision, as well as building things from the ground up, especially when it comes to smaller, less mature systems. I’m also looking to get into some motion design and more complex prototyping.
Josh: Any advice for designers who want to get into design systems?
Tiff: Definitely! Start by familiarizing yourself with some robust public-facing design systems like Polaris, Workbench, Orbit, and Atlassian. Then begin building components, even if it feels intimidating at first. It’s also important to learn how to set up the foundations for a design kit and educate yourself on variables. And I think understanding the basics of code—HTML and CSS—is becoming more and more important.
Josh: Awesome, thanks so much for your time. How can people reach out to you?
Tiff: They can connect with me on LinkedIn.
Josh: Alighty! Thanks so much.
Tiff: Thanks as well!