Figure DS — Vincent Lai

Building the foundation for a blockchain lending company

A responsive design system made for consumer lending

Founded in 2018, Figure provides home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Headquartered in San Francisco, the lender uses blockchain technology and artificial intelligence for an entirely digital application and funding process.

Figure's blockchain technology saves time and money on loans and mortgages by being able to record loans accurately, efficiently, and seamlessly. It is currently the #1 Non-bank Home Equity Line of Credit in the U.S.

Problem

There were multiple design systems within the organization. Not having a single reference point was leading to an inconsistent product that was affecting all areas of development.

Objective

Creating and maintaining consistent, high-quality digital products across different teams, platforms, and products, while also fostering collaboration, efficiency, and scalability.

Core Principles

Consistency

Removing reduncies in the component library and creating reusable user interface and interaction patterns.
Scalability

A scalable design system is flexible to fulfill business and product needs that are current and in the future.
Accessibility

Having an inclusive system made for individuals with physical and cognitive disabilities.
Usability

Usability is towards how easy the system is to be used and navigated.
Efficiency

Creating reusable components that can reduce engineering and design labor.

The Figure Design System contains 237 components & 125 styles—giving designers & product managers the versatility they need

The design system is well documented for both designers and engineering

Focus and Interaction states are included. Customization with variants are also possible

Components & Styles were built in Figma and organized allowing product managers and designers to easily take existing patterns to build out flows

Partners use Figure’s platform for lending services so the Design System was made to be rebranded with relative ease.

Where we can improve

The challenge of design systems is that they have the duality of satisfying the needs of product designers and users in a daily context. Business, accessibility, and product needs will also continually change. Therefore design systems are living and breathing and shouldn’t be considered complete. Rather they are an evolution of best practices and tools.

Creating accessibility should also be internally facing when looking at design systems. Outreach with designers and development on new components is a good metric to see usability or misuse—which is something to always work towards rather than away.