What I reviewed
Before proposing anything, I wanted to understand the system as it was actually used, not only as it was documented, so I looked at it from every angle it touched:
- 01FigmaPando in Figma, from atoms and naming conventions to component structure
- 02BrandThe brand team's guidelines
- 03JourneysProduct teams' Figma journeys, to see the system in use
- 04Live appsStaging apps on Web, iOS and Android, including motion and interaction
Reviewing the live apps alongside Figma showed where design and production had drifted apart, and where teams had built their own solutions to fill the gaps.
Listening to the people using it
I ran workshops with product designers and engineers, and followed up one to one with the engineers on each platform. Each board asked the same core questions: what slows you down, where do you end up rebuilding instead of using the system, and what would it look like if there were no limits.
“Something that feels like it can evolve visually, easily. Where we're pushing the design forward, but still within a system.”
“A library so beautiful and contemporary that you never feel the need to build a custom component again.”
Engineers described a different side of the same problem: each platform had been building things differently, and components were often rebuilt from scratch rather than taken from the system.
“Web component scale is off, the app feels massive and in high contrast mode. Interactions feel very touch/mobile centric.”
“Token seems overly complicated and too rigid, people end up asking engineers to create token that lives outside of Pando when adding a new one should be straightforward.”