Jamie Totten
Design System Lead | Design Engineer
Focused on Transforming Design Systems: From Complexity to Clarity
About
As the founding Design System Lead at Klue, I established the Design System and Design QA functions from the ground up. My primary focus was ensuring flawless design implementation and bridging the critical gap between our product design and engineering teams.
I owned the end-to-end Design QA pipeline, from directing a comprehensive UI audit and building a robust design token architecture, to implementing rigorous visual testing processes. By creating a single source of truth in our design system, I established the governance and standards needed to enforce UI consistency, champion accessibility (WCAG), and guarantee that the design intent was perfectly translated into the final product.
This work created a culture of design quality, streamlined the design-to-development workflow, and empowered teams to build better, more consistent products faster.
At Klue, I inherited a complex, fragmented system and spearheaded the ‘Reduce and Refine’ project, a full-spectrum strategy to overhaul clarity, consistency, and usability.
Through deep audits, strong collaboration, and a relentless focus on documentation, I trimmed away legacy bloat and rebuilt core components for reliability. The new system became a trusted foundation that was faster for engineers, clear for designers, and accessible for all teams.
Featured Project
Button Component: The Flagship “Reduce and Refine” Example
Our Button component, once tangled by excessive variants and confusing documentation, became the showcase for impact:
- Before: 3 sizes, 63 total variants, 4 separate components, inconsistent spacing and color logic, unclear usage instructions.
- After: 2 sizes, 12 variants, 1 unified, flexible component backed by explicit Figma/Storybook documentation, accessible patterns, and focused design tokens.
This overhaul sets a reference for every new component. By combining visual updates with API clarity and detailed guides, I created a system others want to work with and build on.
Case Study Snapshot: Why ‘Reduce and Refine’ Matters
The project didn’t just improve the look, it reduced bugs, sped up delivery by almost 30%, and increased positive design and engineer feedback.
Every part of our product now reflects the clarity and rigor established in this project.