Danny McClain
Danny McClain

Case Study: SmileDirectClub

Creating a design system from the ground up during a major replatform was no easy task, but it was one that I was happy to lead.

SmileDirectClub's website architecture was outdated and a huge hinderance to designers, developers, and project owners across the company. Due to a variety of limitations, the divide between design handoff and implementation left something to be desired.

We needed to modernize our approach to design and create cross-team alignment on how design and development should happen at SmileDirectClub. Under the leadership of the Director of Product Design, I spearheaded the design of a comprehensive design system.

I honed the visual design, defined interaction patterns, created organization-wide Figma libraries for foundational styles and complex components, and created best practices, usage guidelines, and how-to videos to give other designers the awesome power of designing systematically.

A snippet from our foundations Figma library that defines universal styles and guidelines across platforms and applications

I worked closely with my developer counterpart throughout the process, and together we made sure that styles and components represented in Figma were also represented in our front end UI library.

A screenshot of our UI component library in Storybook

This work was still in the process of being implemented when I was unfortunately laid off in late January of 2022, but our efforts had already increased design and development efficiency, created a consistent visual language for SmileDirectClub's web presence, greatly improved the user experience of their website, and enabled fast, consistent scaling of design as SmileDirectClub grows.

A small piece of our web components Figma library, which utilizes our foundations to create robust, web-specific patterns and components
A screen from the website Figma file that assembles customized web components and sections into page layouts to accomplish business and user goals
A few of the other projects I worked on: navigation, getting started, and booking a visit

SmileDirectClub's design system was my most recent focus, but during my tenure at SDC, I was also the design and UX lead for many high-impact, customer-facing initiatives. A few notable projects I worked on:

  • The first iteration of the SmileDirectClub iOS app* (including research, user flows, testing, and visual design)

  • The web interface for SmileDirectClub's partner network, which allows dentists and orthodontist to prescribe SDC's clear aligner treatment to their patients

  • A complete overhaul of user flows and visual design for getting started with SmileDirectClub (finding a location and booking a visit or ordering an at-home kit)

*As I transitioned into a more DesignOps/design systems-focused role for SDC's replatform, Chelsea Guerrera took over leading design for the iOS app and did a fantastic job seeing the project through to launch and beyond.

A small selection of screens I designed for SmileDirectClub's partner network

While it's impossible to articulate my every contribution, as the second member of our team (under the fabulously talented Bryan Kemp) I played a key role in shaping the growth and culture of the team and had a huge impact on setting quality standards for UX design at SmileDirectClub.

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