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The GPay India UX team partnered with Designlab to improve design system collaboration, and create more scalable workflows across distributed product teams.
As GPay expanded in India, the complexity of its design system grew alongside the product itself. Designlab delivered a customized design systems training program focused on shared workflows, governance, and broader team ownership.
Challenge
The GPay India design team has a strong focus on building for India, its unique payment behaviors, and its infrastructure.
Over time, rapid growth led to an increasingly complex design system. “As the team and product have scaled, our design system has become quite custom,” explains Jeremy Brett, UX Strategy and Operations Lead for Google Payments in Singapore.
While a dedicated design systems team is responsible for governance, the scale and speed of product development mean designers across product teams need to be empowered and equipped with the skills to contribute.
“We needed a federated system. Everyone needs to know what’s going on, how to use it, and if necessary, how to contribute to the system so that the core team isn’t a bottleneck.”
Another challenge was the design-to-development handoff. The team wanted to explore best practices and governance mechanisms for this crucial part of their workflow.
Together, these challenges all pointed to a need for:
- clearer design system practices and governance
- more consistent workflows, especially around handoff
Solution
GPay India UX partnered with Designlab on a custom training engagement combining Designlab’s Advanced Figma course with a private Design System Mastery workshop. Led by long-time Designlab mentors Blake Arnsdorff and Helena Bukovac, the engagement spanned several weeks and was a mix of async learning, live sessions, and practical exercises.
Importantly, the training was designed not just to upskill individuals, but to support a more scalable model for the design system. Alongside broad team training, a subset of designers — referred to as “Design System Champs” — were identified to help guide best practices, support their teams, and act as stewards of the system across product areas.
The follow-up Design System Mastery sessions focused on this group, diving deeper into governance best practices and improving handoffs.
Beyond tools and techniques, the training emphasized a broader mindset shift, helping the team better understand the complexity of maintaining and scaling a design system.
Key Outcomes
Stronger Shared Understanding of the Design System
One of the most meaningful outcomes was a shift in how the team views the design system — not just as a mechanism for their work, but as a shared responsibility.
“It’s helped the team understand the difficulties of maintaining and scaling the design system. They understand why we shouldn’t diverge, why we shouldn’t customize things, and why we should instead invest in scaling the system. That was the outcome we wanted.”
This deeper understanding has helped reinforce best practices and reduce unnecessary deviations from the system.
It’s helped the team understand the difficulties of maintaining and scaling the design system. They understand why we shouldn’t diverge, why we shouldn’t customize things, and why we should instead invest in scaling the system. That was the outcome we wanted.
More Ownership Across the Team
GPay India UX Design System Champs were organized to help guide best practices and support their teams in working more effectively within the system. But as the training progressed, that sense of ownership began to extend beyond just this group. Rather than relying on a small group of specialists, designers across the team now feel more confident contributing to and shaping the system themselves.
“Everyone has a shared responsibility and more ownership of the system.”
Improved Collaboration
The training has also helped improve collaboration across the team, particularly by creating shared language, workflows, and understanding.
By aligning on tools and principles, designers are better equipped to work together across product areas.
A Stronger Foundation for Future Workflows
Design is always changing, Jeremy notes, but the training provided a solid foundation for the GPay India UX team’s future growth.
“I think it’s given us a good foundation to go forward…to this new world of agentic design.”
Collaboration has improved, and I can attribute that to carving out time for the team for training and for them to better understand the importance of scale.
Conclusion
For GPay India, investing in team-wide training was an important part of scaling both their product and their design system.
By improving technical skills, recentering on best practices, and creating a shared commitment to maintaining the design system, the training pushed the team to operate at a higher level. The team is now moving toward a more distributed, scalable approach, where designers across roles can confidently participate in building and sustaining the system.
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