Gap Inc. · Sr. UX Manager, Headless UI Design Systems · 2024
A Headless UI system for four brands
Gap Inc. needed a design system that could serve Gap, Banana Republic, Athleta, and Old Navy without four disconnected libraries, and without a single kit so rigid that brand expression disappeared. I led Headless UI and Design Systems to make the system flexible enough for every property and usable enough for teams to ship on it.
The problem
Multi-brand ecommerce at this scale tends toward fragmentation — every brand invents buttons, grids, and content patterns — or a lowest-common-denominator kit that marketing and brand teams will not use. Headless architecture raised the cost of inconsistency: the same UI primitives had to travel across platforms and storefronts.
Role
Senior UX Manager for Headless UI and Design Systems. Accountable for system strategy and execution, centralized resources, and the tooling that made the system usable day to day.
Strategy
- Treat the system as a product for designers and engineers shipping four brands.
- Separate shared structural UI from brand expression so tokens and components could flex without forking the architecture.
- Invest in tooling, intake, and ways of working so adoption was the default.
Outcome
The Headless UI design system was established and optimized across Gap, Banana Republic, Athleta, and Old Navy. User-experience metrics improved by an average of 15% across brands. Centralized systems and design-tool practices improved team efficiency and output.