Utah County UX System
I led the creation and expansion of Utah County's design system, using it as a tool to restructure government workflow. By implementing a federated governance model, I removed the friction between departments and developers. The result was a 150% increase in service usage, 3.3 million in IT budget secured, and two NACo awards.
Trust Deficit
Utah County Government (UCG) digital infrastructure supports 700,000 citizens, but it was failing. Accessibility issues and broken navigation across our 30+ public web applications eroded public trust, while costly post-launch fixes made the 25 internal departments skeptical of IT's capabilities.
My objective was to secure a modernization budget and implement a sustainable UX solution, I will pilot a high-impact UX project to gain trust, build the foundational tools for a UX operation, and scale the tools to all 25 departments.
01 Pilot
To rebuild trust and secure funding for a county-wide initiative, I had to first deliver a tangible win by proof of concept. I chose our most visible public asset—the main county website—as the pilot project to demonstrate the immediate impact of a user-centered design approach.
Task-Based Intuitive Navigation
Foundational Style Guide
Key results that unlocked the next phase
User
4.2/5 user satisfaction through embedded Qualtrics surveys
Stakeholder
Turned skepticism into genuine excitement in meetings
Internal Team
Expanded my solo project into a collaborative UX initiative
02 Build The System
Diagnosing Execution Failures
The new UX standard of the pilot struggled to scale, so I interviewed dev teams to diagnose the systemic problem. My research revealed 3 interconnected problems spanning all parts of our operational system: our tools, our process, and our people. This was how I solved them:
01
Style Guide was too abstract
A dev-friendly Design System
02
Rigid workflow caused bloated budgets
A hybrid-agile workflow
03
Centralized governance create bottle-necks and dissents
A federated UX committee
Dev-Friendly Design System
We identified the most common layout patterns and created modular components and templates for them. We then created a straightforward copy/paste component library paired with a Tailwind theme package. This approach gave developers maximum ease of customization, enabled easy batch updates across all services, and provided built-in WCAG 2.2 compliance.
Hybrid Workflow
We replaced the rigid waterfall process with an agile workflow that integrated design thinking principles and asynchronous UX testing, eliminating late-stage rebuilds.
A Federated UX Committee
To eliminate quality control bottleneck and ensure the design system's continual evolution, I led a UX committee consisted of representatives from each development team. This way the design system can benefit from a deeper understanding of product needs while each design representative can ensure the smooth application of the design system within their team.
03 Scaling
The pilot departments, now our strongest advocates, presented their success stories during county agenda meetings. Their testimonials, backed by our data on improved efficiency and user satisfaction, created unanimous support and were the deciding factor in securing the full $3.3 million from the county's IT upgrade fund.
Impact
National Recognition
Our redesign effort was recognized by the National Association of Counties (NACo) in 2024 for its best-in-class improvements to digital service delivery.
Financial Viability
$3.3 M
Target budget secured for web modernization
80%
Departments completed the new system adoption
$0
Net cost, as savings from the design system fully funded its development
User Impact
100%
WCAG 2.2 compliance on all new projects
150%
Increased public service utilization
4.2
/5
User rating
Operational Efficiency
40%
Reduced developer time spend on rework
Sustainable Foundation
Most importantly, we successfully laid the foundation for a sustainable UX future within the Utah County Government.
Solo designer/dev
A dedicated UX team
No UX process
A proven system
Skepticism
Internal advocates
