Evolving & Extending
a Design System
B L A C K R O C K
BlackRock’s Aladdin platform is one of the most widely used platforms amongst portfolio managers, investors, and advisors. While the platform touts unifying the investment management process, pre-design system—the overall design language and UI across applications was anything but.
I joined the Aladdin Design System team from 2019 to 2022—at the launch of the new design system—and had the opportunity to contribute to and touch on multiple applications within the platform. Here are a few key projects I worked on.
A L A D D I N D E S I G N S Y S T E M
Under the direction of Yael Alpert, now Head of Product for Aladdin, I worked with the design team as a UI/UX designer to extend the system across a number of products.
Some of the tools I re-designed were data viz heavy, and because of that, I was able to help steer the data viz library for the design system. I worked with a UX lead to identify common charts and provide use cases and examples for them. Working with UX and tech, we delivered a set of charts across dark and light mode with responsiveness in mind. The library is now part of the design system and developers may access and pull these charts off the shelf to implement into tools with ease.
As the team expanded, I helped to provide oversight and mentored newer designers. I facilitated weekly sessions with contractors and smaller teams to review and share feedback during my time with the firm.
A L A D D I N S T U D I O
For developers or code curious users—AladdinStudio is a platform that allows users to tap into Aladdin’s underlying analytics for the purposes of creating APIs, leveraging databases to answer specific questions, and much more.
F E A T U R E S
I had the opportunity to work on the following :
User Dashboard: Display of project and spaces user has access to along with projects, jobs, and credit usage information
Project page: Display of project information and users with access
Collaborative features: Adding and removing users to projects and workspaces, assigning owners
Usage dashboard: Provide admins overview of credit usage and purchase; management of users, teams, and visibility of projects
R E S P O N S I B I L I T I E S
Work with research group to plan studies and distill user feedback
Create prototypes to test with users
Attend weekly reviews and feedback sessions with stakeholders, business and tech partners
Ensure alignment of patterns with design system; conduct check-ins with design team to ensure consistency and share progress
Design final screens for platform UI
Handoff and work with technology for implementation
Conducted visual and functional QA
“You have made a huge impact on what we're offering to our clients. Your involvement in research, UX design, and product definition enabled us to explore new ideas and innovate. And along with all of that, you brought accountability, thoroughness, engagement, and fun to the work.”
Product Owner, AladdinStudio
N I C E W O R D S
