modeless

Portfolio/Design Systems

2019-2021

SHAPE Design System / Electrolux / 2019-2021

SHAPE: a global design system for a house of brands

The first global Electrolux design system, spanning mobile apps, physical interfaces, voice, sound, light, and CMF.

I named and spearheaded SHAPE as the foundation for a new global UX organization, aligning product craft, technology, and ways of working across a house of brands.

  • Design Systems
  • Connected Products & Services
  • Design Leadership & Organization
A connected appliance interface being tested in use.
A connected appliance interface being tested in use.

Company

Electrolux

Role

Director UX

Period

2019–2021

Delivery

SHAPE v1.0–v3.0

Contribution

Proposed, named, resourced, and led the global design-system program, governance, and organization.

Context

Creating a common product language without flattening the brands

When I joined Electrolux, there was no global UX design function. Strong regional teams were solving similar product problems independently, with little infrastructure for sharing the best work.

I was hired to create a global design organization that could strengthen the brand experience while reducing repeated effort across business units and regions.

SHAPE became the first major initiative I spearheaded. It created a shared foundation for digital products, physical interfaces, voice, sound, light, and color, material, and finish.

44

Mobile applications in the starting landscape

Internal project research

~30

Designers in the global working groups

Program record

3

Major versions delivered, v1.0 to v3.0

Program record

The count of 44 describes the landscape the program inherited. It is internal project research, not a public performance metric.

Printed UI assets from products in production, cut out and grouped on workshop boards.
We assembled UI assets from products in production around the world, printed them, cut out components, and grouped them. The exercise made duplication and inconsistency tangible, and gave teams a shared view of the real ecosystem.

Challenge

The hard part was alignment, not components

Design systems were still a relatively new idea, and there were few established tools or case studies to follow. The deeper challenge was cultural: bringing geographically dispersed teams into a common way of working.

Common foundations

Reusable interaction patterns and technology choices had to work across mobile, embedded interfaces, voice, and other product modalities.

Flexible expression

Because Electrolux is a house of brands, the system needed to enable distinct brand expressions without recreating core UX for every product line.

My contribution

I built the program around the system

The work extended far beyond a UI kit. I was accountable for making the case, creating the conditions for delivery, and turning the system into a durable organizational capability.

I proposed and named SHAPE, secured budget and resources, wrote the agency RFP, led procurement and partner selection, and owned the delivery of versions 1.0 through 3.0. The work required a program and an organization, not a one-off library.

  • Proposed the program and secured the budget, resources, and timeline.
  • Owned the overall delivery of SHAPE v1.0, v2.0, and v3.0.
  • Wrote the RFP and led agency selection through purchasing.
  • Organized global working groups of roughly 30 designers.
  • Created governance, contribution models, and working processes.
  • Recruited dedicated design-system leadership and design roles.

What the program was made of

People

Global design organization

Working groups of roughly 30 designers brought regional expertise into shared decisions and helped the new global UX function earn legitimacy.

Operating model

Governance and contribution

Contribution rules, review practices, ownership, training, and dedicated roles allowed the system to evolve without becoming a central-team bottleneck.

Delivery

Toolchain and components

Shared libraries, design tooling, documentation, and reusable implementation patterns connected product design to engineering delivery.

Program

Funding and stewardship

Budget ownership, procurement, vendor management, roadmaps, and executive alignment kept the work operating as a long-term product program.

Approach

One system, many brands

Electrolux is a house of brands. SHAPE therefore separated shared structure from adaptable expression, so each brand could look like itself on a common foundation.

That model allowed Electrolux, AEG, and other group brands to share product logic and engineering foundations without pretending every brand should look identical. The program also gave geographically distributed teams a common language for deciding what should be shared, what should remain product-specific, and how to contribute without losing local knowledge.

Shared structure

  • Behavior
  • Accessibility
  • Layout
  • Components
  • Interaction patterns
  • Technical foundations

Adaptable expression

  • Typography
  • Color
  • Imagery
  • Tone
Electrolux connected product UI shown across light and dark brand expressions.
The concept connects a physical Electrolux product with connected-product UI across multiple visual expressions.

Electrolux later described the same multi-brand principle publicly through design tokens and a one-app strategy.

The system

A product platform, not a static library

I selected an agency partner and we shaped the content, process, and organization together. The system combined reusable UI with governance, tooling, training, and contribution practices.

SHAPE component system covering tokens, controls, forms, commerce patterns, imagery, and shared icons.
The system connected foundational tokens to buttons, form controls, commerce patterns, product imagery, and a shared icon language.
The first SHAPE Figma UI kit, showing reusable assets alongside component guidance.
The first Figma UI kit arrived in 2020, just in time for remote work. Component guidance joined reusable assets so distributed teams could make consistent decisions, not merely copy visual styles.

The design system became one layer in a broader operating model. Shared job architecture and process supported the people doing the work; the system and UI platforms supported delivery; UX metrics connected the output to product quality.

This framing helped stakeholders see SHAPE as product infrastructure rather than a design-team artifact.

Composable design approach across product modalities.
The composable design operating model.

In products

The direction, as it later reached products

These screens and icons come from later Electrolux products. They show continuity of the product direction, not ownership of every later production detail.

Current Electrolux app oven-control screen.
A later or current Electrolux app screen shows the connected-product direction in production. It is not presented as a pixel-for-pixel artifact created during my tenure.
Electrolux remote oven-control flow across mobile screens.
From Electrolux-hosted promotional material. It shows how one product relationship extends across status, setup, control, and guidance.
Electrolux digital and physical icon set.
Credited to Rob Bartlett. Electrolux reported that the unified icon library reached the Electrolux and AEG native applications, providing continuity between physical and digital touchpoints.

Outcomes

A system that changed both the product direction and the organization

The clearest evidence was not a single launch metric. It was the combination of shipped system versions, global participation, a new consolidation strategy, and permanent organizational ownership.

As reported by Above

66%

Less UI production time

50%

Less front-end development time

100+

Components

100+

Touchpoints

These figures come from Above’s published Electrolux case study. They are attributed third-party case-study claims, not independently audited internal metrics.

Before

  • 44 separate mobile applications across the group
  • Regional teams solving similar problems independently
  • No global UX function to set a common direction
  • Little infrastructure for sharing the best work

After

  • A move toward one global mobile-product strategy
  • Shared foundations with adaptable brand expression
  • Governance, contribution practices, training, and dedicated roles
  • Brand strategy, reusable components, modular technology, and product measurement connected

System delivery

A global foundation that evolved through three major versions

SHAPE established reusable patterns across mobile, physical interfaces, voice, sound, light, and color, material, and finish.

Product direction

A clearer case for consolidation

The work helped show the value of moving from more than 40 separate mobile apps toward one global app strategy and modular electronics.

Operating model

Design-system work became an organizational capability

Governance, contribution practices, global working groups, and dedicated roles made the system more than a one-time UI library.

Leadership lesson

Adoption depends as much on organization design as interface design. A shared library becomes a system only when teams have the mandate, governance, tools, and incentives to improve it together.

My contribution was creating, funding, organizing, and leading the system and the global conditions that allowed it to reach products.

Part of the same program

Next case study

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More work

Official 2024 Electrolux image showing the mobile app as the digital control and service layer for a physical appliance. This later product context makes the connected physical–digital experience visible.

Product Experience

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Connected Products & Services · Design Leadership & Organization

embedded UI · mobile applications · appliance UX

Ownership Experience reframed the relationship with customers around the full life of an appliance: from onboarding and use through service, repair, and repurchase.

Ownership Experience

Electrolux · VP Digital & Service Design · 2020–2022

A global program to shift appliance ownership from one-time purchase thinking toward lifecycle services, support, onboarding, repair, and repurchase.

Service Design · Connected Products & Services

customer journey · transformation · connected services

Illustrative portfolio visualization of the scanning moment, not documentary Electrolux product photography or a functional production QR code.

Link

Electrolux · VP Digital & Service Design · 2020–2022

A global QR-code program that connected appliances to lifecycle content, onboarding, support, services, and appliance-specific ownership experiences.

Connected Products & Services · Service Design

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modelessIndependent AI products, tools, experiments, and design infrastructure.Est. 2019 / Sweden | USA