2022
Designing for Efficiency
In 2022, I built Waterdrop's first Design Language System - replacing ad-hoc visual decisions with a tokenized architecture that synced between Figma and code. The result: consistent experiences across 22 markets and a design-to-engineering workflow that no longer slowed down shipping.
A cross-section of the component library: navigation, product surface, error handling, flavour selection. Built once, deployed across 22 markets.
The groundwork
When I joined, every visual decision was made from scratch. No tokens, no shared components: patterns defined on the fly, which meant inconsistent experiences and engineering rework every time something needed to change.
I proposed a 4-month roadmap to the CPO to build our first design language, with one condition I set myself: we'd continue shipping features throughout.
The system wouldn't slow us down - it would eventually speed us up.
Colour tokens organised by role, not value. When the brand colour changes, one update propagates everywhere.
A system for assembly
I moved the team to a tokenized architecture: a single source of truth that synced between Figma and code and eliminated the constant translation overhead between design and engineering.
For three months, DLS and non-DLS sections coexisted. The site was visibly inconsistent. That was the cost of the promise to keep shipping. Thirty percent of the system was live within four months. The rest followed the year after.
Every element maps to a named token. Background-error is a role, not a hex code. That distinction is what makes the system maintainable at scale.
Every element maps to a named token. Background-error is a role, not a hex code. That distinction is what makes the system maintainable at scale.
2023
Designing for Systemic Scale
Before this system, every launch was manual coordination across teams with no shared structure. Content was being rebuilt from scratch in each market, sometimes finishing hours before go-live.
I moved the organization toward a modular data model that separated content from layout, turning the storefront into a logic-driven engine rather than a collection of static pages. E-commerce teams could now assemble and launch data-rich experiences independently, from a shared template, ahead of time. Production lead times dropped by 50%. The company saved €300k a year in operational costs.
The content framework in full
This section covers the strategic layer. The full case study goes into the alignment process, the Shopify Metaobject architecture, and the Figma template system.
2024
Designing for Accessibility
A year before the EU accessibility directive came into effect, I started refactoring our component library with Engineering - not because we had to yet, but because we knew scale would make it harder. Waiting wasn't an option.
The work moved us from reactive fixes to a built-in accessibility model: auditing existing patterns, rewriting components to WCAG standard, and making inclusive design part of how we build rather than something layered on afterwards. The result was full WCAG compliance and an end to the ADA lawsuits we'd been facing in the US.
The colour selectors, before and after. Labels, focus states, and out-of-stock indicators — all absent in the original, all now meeting WCAG 2.4.6, 1.3.1, and 2.4.7.
2025
Designing for Business Impact
As a founding member of the cross-functional A/B testing squad with product and e-commerce, I owned the design direction and shifted the company from gut-feel decisions to validated iteration. The harder problem wasn't running more tests. It was guardrails.
A looping promotional banner got shipped across the site after showing a marginal CVR lift, without design review. It made the brand look like a discount retailer. Getting it removed took longer than building it did. My focus became ensuring every optimisation held up commercially and aesthetically, not just one or the other.
The result: 7–10% YoY growth in CVR, RPV and AOV. 2–3x more experiments in parallel, with roughly 50% less setup time per test.
2021 - present
Designing for the Brand Ecosystem
At waterdrop, brand and product design weren't separate workstreams, they informed each other. I shaped decisions about visual direction, how the brand should feel across channels, and how product choices carried through to physical touchpoints.
The consistency across retail stores, performance ads in six languages, event activations, and product partnerships wasn't accidental. It came from shared decisions, made early and built into a system that held.
Web, mobile, campaign, and out-of-home. The same visual language across every surface — because it was built into the system from the start, not applied at the end.
Reflections
Five years of building infrastructure as the sole designer taught me that the hardest constraint isn't time or resource, it's legitimacy. Getting the DLS, the content model, the testing framework, and the accessibility overhaul adopted meant making each one feel inevitable to the people who'd have to live inside it.
If I were starting again, I'd have fought for dedicated infrastructure time from year one. Shipping systems alongside features worked. But it was a tax I was paying alone, and that's not a sustainable way to build anything that's meant to outlast you.
©2026 Teodora Gheorghe