Digital Pulse Design System

Company

CVS Health

Problem & Context

Scale and evolve an enterprise design system aligned with CVS Health brand and accessibility standards while driving meaningful adoption across the Digital organization. The goal was to clearly demonstrate the system’s value to both design and engineering by reducing duplication, improving quality, and accelerating delivery.

My Role

As a Senior Manager, I led the vision, strategy, and execution of the Digital Pulse Design System. I set quality and accessibility standards for core components, partnered closely with engineering and leadership, and drove adoption through clear storytelling, enablement, and hands-on system contribution. I remained deeply embedded in the work, personally designing and building key components to ensure they met high standards for usability, accessibility, and reuse.

Approach and Solution

I defined and operationalized the Digital Pulse design system to support real product needs while upholding rigorous standards for accessibility, interaction quality, and scalability. The system was designed to balance flexibility with consistency, enabling teams to move faster without sacrificing quality.

I personally designed and built many of the core Pulse components now used across CVS mobile and web experiences, ensuring complete interaction states, responsive behavior, and accessibility support were built in from the start. Alongside this work, I developed clear documentation, tools, and workflows that helped unify design direction across more than 15 solution teams and supported adoption by a 450+ person design organization.

To reinforce adoption and understanding, I mentored over 150 designers and facilitated collaboration across a large, distributed team, helping embed system thinking into everyday product work rather than positioning the system as a separate or optional layer.

Demonstrating Impact

To clearly communicate the value of Digital Pulse, I created a side-by-side demo of a patient scheduling experience. One version was built using Pulse components, and the other was created without the system.

This comparison made the benefits of Pulse immediately tangible. The Pulse-based prototype was completed three times faster, while also delivering built-in accessibility support, responsive behavior, and complete component states. The demo illustrated how the system reduced design effort, improved consistency, and increased confidence in downstream implementation.

The demo was created in collaboration with engineering and executive leadership, including a narrated walkthrough. It was presented to the EVP of CVS Health and is now used as a core asset to communicate the value of the design system and reinforce adoption across the organization.

Outcomes

  • Unified design direction across 15+ solution teams through shared foundations and workflows

  • Supported adoption across a 450+ person digital design organization

  • Enabled 3× faster prototyping using system components

  • Elevated accessibility, interaction quality, and consistency across CVS digital products

  • Mentored 150+ designers, strengthening system literacy and design craft at scale

  • Influenced executive leadership by clearly demonstrating system ROI and efficiency