Digital Asset Repository: Improving Brand Consistency at Scale
Company: Philips
Project Summary
I led the research, design, and prototyping of a digital asset repository at Philips to improve brand consistency and reduce legal risk across the product portfolio. The repository gave employees easy access to design system–approved assets, replacing fragmented and outdated sources.
Timeline & Team
12 weeks from discovery to prototype. I led the project as researcher, experience designer, and project manager, collaborating with an icon designer.
Responsibilities
Quantitative & qualitative research
Experience and interaction design
Prototype creation & usability testing
Project coordination and stakeholder communication
Outcome
Launched a proof-of-concept digital asset repository with immediate traction, within the first month, 94% of users accessed the tool daily, demonstrating strong user need and adoption.
OVERVIEW
Inconsistent Assets, Fragmented Workflows, and Legal Risk
Across Philips’ product portfolio, inconsistent use of icons was compromising brand coherence and, in some cases, introducing legal risk. Designers relied heavily on these assets in their daily workflows, but the existing system, built in 2001, had become a bottleneck.
Key Challenges:
Poor search and discoverability: The icon library was large but hard to navigate
Outdated and unmaintainable: The legacy system was difficult to update and lacked version control
Unintuitive interface: Designers struggled to find or trust the right assets, slowing down their workflow
No governance model: There was no clear way to report issues or ensure proper usage, raising legal and compliance concerns
The goal was to reimagine the asset repository as a fast, modern, and reliable tool that supports both design efficiency and brand integrity.
SUMMARY
Philips saw an opportunity to modernise how approved digital assets were stored, accessed, and maintained, reducing friction for designers and ensuring alignment with the design system.
A Trusted Source for Design System Assets
A Centralised Source of Truth
The new repository provided a single, reliable location for all design system–approved assets, eliminating uncertainty and increasing trust across the design and development community.
94% Faster Asset Retrieval
Search and download time for icons improved by 94%, helping designers stay in flow and reduce time lost to inefficient tooling.
Boost in User Satisfaction
A transparent, easy-to-use workflow empowered users to find what they needed and report issues with confidence, contributing to a noticeable increase in user happiness.
RESEARCH
Learning from Industry Standards
To strengthen the case for a redesigned asset repository, I conducted a competitor analysis of other digital asset management tools across the industry. The goal was to identify best practices, uncover gaps, and extract features that could inform Philips’ internal tooling.
Key outcomes from the analysis:
Identified common features such as version control, tag-based search, and visual previews
Noted pitfalls like bloated navigation or unclear governance models
Highlighted opportunities to streamline access, improve trust, and embed the design system into day-to-day workflows
These findings shaped the direction of the new tool, ensuring it addressed real user needs while aligning with modern standards.
Understanding Workflow Friction and Trust Gaps
To uncover the purpose, expectations, and pain points around the digital asset repository, I conducted 5 in-depth user interviews and distributed a survey to the wider design and development community.
User Interviews
Interviews focused on understanding how users interacted with the tool and what information they relied on when using downloaded assets.
“Talk me through how you would search for an icon.”
“Once you’ve downloaded an asset, what key information do you need about it?”
“What part of the current system slows you down or causes frustration?”
SAMPLE QUESTIONS
Surveys
The survey helped validate patterns at scale and capture measurable indicators of pain or satisfaction.
SAMPLE QUESTIONS
“How long does the process take from search to download?”
“How often do you use the current digital asset repository?”
“On a scale of 1–5, how would you rate the ease of searching for an asset?”
Where the Existing Experience Broke Down
The research surfaced several critical issues affecting the usability and trustworthiness of the current digital asset repository:
-
Users couldn’t easily tell which assets had been recently updated, creating confusion and risk when using outdated icons.
-
There was no intuitive way to request new assets, report issues, or suggest updates, limiting collaboration and accountability.
-
The current repository was slow to load and respond, especially during asset search and download, disrupting designer workflows.
-
The search engine failed to interpret common terms or synonyms, making it hard to find the right asset without guessing the “correct” label.
“Sometimes, I don’t know what words to use for searching, the most obvious ones don’t work.”
EXPERIENCE DESIGN
Shaping the Solution: Aligning Around Transparency and Control
The research revealed that users felt disconnected from the asset lifecycle, unsure how to contribute, report issues, or request updates. To address this, I identified a key opportunity: improving transparency and participation in how assets are managed.
To move forward, I facilitated a stakeholder workshop to align on shared goals, define responsibilities, and co-create a more open, user-friendly governance model for the repository.
“If I need a completely new icon that isn’t available, I have no idea what the process is or how long it would take…”
Designing the End-to-End Asset Experience
To support a more transparent and scalable repository, I created a service blueprint mapping out how users would interact with the proposed system — from discovering assets to submitting and reviewing new requests.
The blueprint captured:
Frontstage and backstage touchpoints
Cross-functional roles and responsibilities
Key pain points and opportunity areas
New workflows for upload, approval, and issue reporting
This allowed both design and non-design stakeholders to understand how the new system would function across teams — reducing friction and creating shared accountability.
PROTOTYPE, TEST & ITERATE
One of the early challenges was figuring out how to store and manage metadata for each asset, including tags, version history, usage context, and approval status. This metadata was critical to improving both searchability and governance.
Structuring Metadata: Introducing a YAML-Based Solution
After researching lightweight, maintainable solutions, I proposed using YAML files to store and structure the metadata. This approach allowed the tool to remain flexible, developer-friendly, and scalable, without needing a full CMS backend at the proof-of-concept stage.
“To paint a better picture of the score, it would be great if we include information regarding…”
This decision helped bridge the gap between design system governance and day-to-day usability, making asset information easier to display, maintain, and act on.
From Wireframes to a Functional Proof of Concept
To validate the new experience, I started by designing low-fidelity wireframes to map out the core user flows, from searching for an asset to reporting or requesting a new one.
Once the flow was aligned, I translated the designs into high-fidelity mockups, and then built a working proof of concept using VueJS. The prototype connected to a GitLab repository via an API, pulling in live asset data and metadata stored in YAML files.
“It’s so easy to find an icon. I didn’t need any onboarding, I just typed a few words and found what I needed in seconds. We finally have something fit for modern-day use.”
This working prototype enabled meaningful usability testing and real-time feedback, while demonstrating technical feasibility to stakeholders.
Faster Access, Lower Design Debt, Greater Trust
The redesigned asset repository significantly improved usability and helped drive consistency across teams.
94% Improvement in Search & Download Time
Users were able to find and retrieve icons in seconds, compared to long wait times with the previous system, enabling faster design work and fewer workflow interruptions.
Reduction in Design Debt
Thanks to improved search, version control, and clearer governance, product owners and scrum masters reported a noticeable reduction in design inconsistencies, especially across teams working on shared platforms.
OUTCOMES & LESSONS
Since its launch, the digital asset repository has become a key tool for designers, helping teams use the correct assets and reduce inconsistencies across the portfolio.
Design Debt Reduction
Two product teams reported an average design debt drop from 57% to 21%, attributing the improvement to easier access to approved icons and clearer governance.
IN THE 30 DAYS SINCE LAUNCH OF THE TOOL WITH JUST 100 ICONS ONLY
78 %
94 %
Increase increase in traffic compared to the older site.
Improvement in time taken when a user searches and downloads an icon.
43
Assets were downloaded in the first month
These early signs of adoption show that even in a limited state, the tool was already solving real problems, paving the way for broader rollout and scaling.
The new digital asset repository has become a crucial tool for reducing visual design debt, improving brand consistency, and mitigating legal risk across Philips’ product teams.
Listing all assets that matched a search term improved discoverability and trust
Instantaneous search results significantly boosted user satisfaction
Product owners reported fewer to no asset-related errors during sprint reviews, improving delivery confidence
Key Outcomes & Results
Autonomic UX: I proactively addressed problems beyond the original brief — improving not just the interface, but the underlying asset structure and governance model
Audience Awareness: I learned to adjust language depending on the stakeholder — technical language for developers, simplified workflows for designers
Transparency Builds Trust: Users feel confident when they know who owns what, how things are updated, and where to go when something isn’t right
What I learnt