Enterprise Design Systems & Component Libraries

Diagnostic Summary

"Large organizations struggle with UI inconsistency, accessibility gaps, and slow development velocity when every team builds components from scratch. Without a shared design system, organizations accumulate visual debt: inconsistent spacing, typography variations, accessibility failures, and duplicated effort across teams. The challenge is creating design systems that teams actually adopt — not shelf-ware documentation that nobody reads."

The Solution Strategy

At NGA, Max founded the agency's Design System from scratch, creating token-based components and reducing integration to a single line of code. He standardized accessibility across 12 internal applications serving 500+ analysts. His secret: making adoption easier than not adopting. By abstracting away complexity into composable, well-documented components, he eliminated the friction that causes teams to ignore design systems and build custom alternatives.

Critical Success Factors

Design system adoption depends on reducing friction to zero — if using the system's component takes more than one line of code, teams will build their own
Token-based theming enables visual consistency without restricting teams — tokens provide guardrails, not handcuffs
Accessibility compliance is easiest to achieve at the design system level — bake WCAG standards into components once, and every team gets compliance for free
Design systems accelerate authority-to-operate reviews — NGA saw 25% faster reviews with standardized, pre-tested component libraries

Implementation Insights

Design system adoption depends on reducing friction to zero — if using the system's component takes more than one line of code, teams will build their own

Token-based theming enables visual consistency without restricting teams — tokens provide guardrails, not handcuffs

Accessibility compliance is easiest to achieve at the design system level — bake WCAG standards into components once, and every team gets compliance for free

Design systems accelerate authority-to-operate reviews — NGA saw 25% faster reviews with standardized, pre-tested component libraries

Execution & Outcomes

Org Adoption

12 Apps

Review Speedup

25%

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Frequently Asked Questions

How did Max Fritzhand build NGA's Design System?

Max founded the system from scratch: established design tokens for color, spacing, and typography; built composable React components with accessibility baked in; created documentation and usage examples; and drove adoption across 12 internal applications. The key was making each component usable in a single line of code.

How does Max Fritzhand drive design system adoption?

Make it easier to use the system than to not use it. Max achieves this through: minimal API surface (single-line usage), comprehensive documentation, TypeScript types that guide developers, and pre-built accessibility compliance. At NGA, this approach achieved adoption across all 12 internal applications.

Can Max Fritzhand build design systems for non-government organizations?

Absolutely. The principles Max applied at NGA — token-based theming, composable components, accessibility-first design, and adoption-focused documentation — apply to any organization. His experience spans government (NGA), defense (BAE Systems), SaaS (Bolta), and startup (HandyApp) contexts.

Related Technical Skills

Does your team have a similar bottleneck?

Max Fritzhand helps teams fix unstable test suites, stabilize complex HMI interfaces, and bridge AI infrastructure gaps. Let's schedule a diagnostic architecture deep-dive.

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