From mechanism
to momentum
Embedding design processes that are built to last in the organization, integrating fragmented experiences and driving a 46% increase in learner engagement.
Overview
The team wasn't built for what came next.
By this point, the organization had a research practice, a measurement framework, and a continuous evidence pipeline. But it didn't have was a way of working that could translate all of that into consistent, high-quality product delivery across a complex platform.
AWS Skill Builder served 25 million customers across four distinct product surfaces: a B2C learning experience, a B2B administration console for training managers, a payment and subscription system, and an internal learning management system where all training content was created and managed. The redesign spanned across these four surfaces, each serving different user types: learners discovering and consuming content, external admins managing teams and compliance, internal content authors building curriculum, and the shared platform tying them together.
Each surface had different users, different engineering teams, and different product priorities. Design operated from a central pool, handing off work after decisions had already been shaped. Engineering and product moved on their own timelines. Trust was low, shared visibility was limited, and the platform had grown organically into inconsistent patterns with no design system, no accessibility standards, and fragmented discoverability.
The challenge wasn't just redesigning and merging the systems. It was building a way of working that could span all four product contexts and hold up after the redesign was done. I led a team across all product surfaces, designing alongside the team while my designers owned surface-level work within each product area. My direct contributions were the operating model itself: the embedded team structure, tiered reviews, rapid research mechanism, design strategy, and accessibility standards, along with the cross-functional relationships with engineering and product leadership that made the structural changes possible.
Three structural gaps kept the platform fragmented and the teams building it disconnected from each other.
Design, product, and engineering operated on separate timelines and goals. The result was slow delivery, rework, and a pattern where each function optimized for its own workflow rather than the shared outcome.
level of design fidelity varied greatly across products, resulting in a trust problem for customers operating across surfaces. Additionally, the chosen design system did not readily address the majority of our use cases.
The team's structure was not set up to handle the redesign's scope and timeline. Creating and validating designs at the speed and volume demanded required a new cadence and fundamentally different processes.
Problem
Division, continuity, and pace.
The work started with how the team was organized, then built outward to systems and cadence.
Each designer was paired with a product manager and engineering lead — a trio that worked together from problem definition through delivery. Design was in the room when constraints were identified, not interpreting them secondhand from a spec.
Outcome
Design influence at the point of constraint.
Not every decision needed the same review. I created a tiered process to distinguish decisions that needed full cross-functional alignment from decisions designers could make independently. Routine work moved faster while critical decisions got the scrutiny needed.
Outcome
Bottlenecks removed, not accountability.
I built a 3-week sprint mechanism for continuous testing and led creation of a design system extension that spanning all product contexts, including a component library, reusable templates, and UX writing standards, all built to WCAG 2.1 compliance.
Outcome
Testing up 143%. Cycle time down 57%.
With the team restructured around shared ownership, the systems and cadence that followed had somewhere to land.
Solution
Partnerships, systems, and processes built for speed.
All designs were delivered and locked six weeks ahead of schedule.
But the real result was that the mechanisms outlasted the project. The embedded trio model, the tiered review process, and the rapid experimentation cadence were formalized as the operating model, not adopted for a single initiative.
The design system continues to govern how new features are built across all four product surfaces, and the research mechanism continues to generate evidence that shapes what gets built next.
Results
The model outlasted the project.
0
increase in engagement
0
faster design delivery
0
more testing
0
improvement in navigation
0
WCAG 2.1 compliance
The hardest part wasn't building the system. It was getting teams to give up control they'd held for years. Responsibilities shifted. Design decisions that used to happen unilaterally now ran through the trio. That friction was real, and it didn't resolve on day one.
What made it work was evidence. The rapid testing sprint produced results fast enough that teams could see the difference before the discomfort wore off. Once evidence-backed decisions started shipping faster than opinion-based ones had, the structural change stopped feeling like a loss.
Infrastructure becomes culture.
The research practice created access to customers, and the evidence pipeline created a continuous signal. Then, the measurement framework turned shared signals into a language for quality.
And, finally, team mechanisms created the organizational muscle to act on all of it, consistently, across products, at pace.
These things were done not because they were mandated, but because it worked. And the teams who used them shipped better products, faster, with evidence they trusted. That's the version of institutional change that holds.
Reflection
Speed felt like control, but the evidence said otherwise.