← Jake Jayakaran
PAMPERS / DESIGN SYSTEM
Pampers Design System
Pampers Design System
Pampers Design System
Role
Design Lead
Category
Digital design / Design systems
Team
brand, development, product and external agency partners (Elevator)
I helped create Pampers' first digital design system, translating a global consumer brand into reusable interface foundations that could increase consistency while allowing individual digital products to keep solving different problems.
CONFIDENTIAL WORK
Proprietary components, design files, and unreleased product applications have been omitted or generalized. This case study focuses on the system strategy, leadership, and organizational impact.
Pampers / digital design system
3 months
3 months
Design system development
01
01
Shared digital foundation
03
03
Key decisions / building for adoption
01 / CONTEXT
A shared digital foundation.
A shared digital foundation.
My ownership
System strategy, visual and interaction principles, component definition, governance and stakeholder alignment
02 / CHALLENGE
Consistency across experiences.
Consistency across experiences.
Pampers had multiple digital experiences being developed across teams, initiatives and partners.
Without shared foundations, every new project risked solving the same visual and interaction problems independently.
For the people using it
Users encountered inconsistent experiences across digital touchpoints.
The constraint
A global brand system couldn't become so rigid that it prevented teams from solving genuinely different UX problems.
03 / STRATEGY
Standardize what matters.
Standardize what matters.
Create a system that standardizes the things users shouldn't have to relearn while leaving room for the things individual products genuinely need to invent.
Create a system that standardizes the things users shouldn't have to relearn while leaving room for the things individual products genuinely need to invent.
04 / DECISIONS
Build for adoption.
Build for adoption.
01
Translate brand principles into interface behavior
Rather than treating the system as a library of branded components, define how Pampers should behave digitally. Why: Visual consistency alone doesn't create experience consistency.
Tradeoff: Required alignment across brand and UX rather than simply documenting UI.
02
Separate foundations from product-specific patterns
Shared typography, color, spacing, hierarchy and core components could remain stable while specialized flows stayed flexible. Why: Not everything deserves to become a global component.
Tradeoff: Teams needed judgment about where the system stopped.
03
Design for adoption
Documentation and reusable assets were treated as part of the product. Why: A theoretically perfect system nobody uses creates zero consistency.
Tradeoff: System work had to address organizational behavior as much as visual design.
05 / IMPACT
Shared foundations. Stronger teams.
Shared foundations. Stronger teams.
Established a shared digital foundation for Pampers experiences.
Reduced duplicated design effort and accelerated future product development.
Established a shared design language, governance model, and contribution process across cross-functional teams.
Improved onboarding and enabled teams to build from reusable patterns instead of recreating common UI.
06 / REFLECTION
Adoption makes the system.
Adoption makes the system.
A design system succeeds because people adopt it—not because it's comprehensive.
A design system succeeds because people adopt it—not because it's comprehensive.
Building trust, governance, and organizational alignment proved more important than building components.