Reduced 60% of Frontend Dev Effort by Using a Unified Design System, ChatGPT, and Cursor AI
At AuthBridge, a leading background verification and financial risk and compliance company, we faced a significant challenge: how to improve the consistency of our brand and user experience across eight different products, all while reducing the time and effort from design to development. Each product had been developed using different frameworks—Bootstrap, custom PHP, and even Material UI—with multiple frontend teams working in silos. This fragmented approach led to inconsistencies and inefficiencies that hindered our ability to deliver a seamless user experience.
The Problem
Inconsistent Frameworks and Isolated Teams
Our products were a patchwork of different technologies and design philosophies. The use of various frameworks meant that components were not reusable across projects, and teams often duplicated effort by building similar features from scratch. The lack of a unified design language resulted in a disjointed user experience, making it difficult for users to navigate between our products seamlessly.
Design to Development Bottlenecks
Without a standardized design system, the transition from design to development was fraught with delays. Designers and developers spoke different languages, and the absence of shared components led to miscommunication and rework. This not only increased the time to market but also inflated development costs.
The Solution
To address these challenges, we embarked on a journey to unify our design and development processes, leveraging modern tools and artificial intelligence to streamline our workflow.
Adopting Tailwind CSS for Consistency
We chose Tailwind CSS as our single, faster framework for all products. Tailwind’s utility-first approach allowed us to build custom designs without writing custom CSS for each component. This move significantly reduced the complexity of our stylesheets and made it easier for developers to maintain consistency across different projects.
Creating a Unified Design System with Figma and React
We developed a unified design system using Figma, creating a comprehensive library of reusable components. These components were then translated into a React library, ensuring that design and development were aligned. By standardizing components like buttons, forms, and navigation menus, we enabled our teams to build interfaces faster and with greater consistency.
Training a Custom GPT Model
To further enhance productivity, we trained a custom GPT model with our React components, Tailwind best practices, and guidelines for brand experiences. This AI model became a knowledge base that could provide developers with code snippets, style guidelines, and component usage examples tailored to our specific needs.
Integrating Custom GPT with Cursor AI
We integrated the custom GPT model as an API with Cursor AI, an AI-powered code editor. This integration allowed developers to receive real-time suggestions and corrections as they coded, significantly reducing errors and improving code quality. The AI assistant could auto-complete code, suggest optimizations, and ensure adherence to our design system guidelines.
The Results
By unifying our design system and leveraging AI tools, we achieved remarkable results:
• Reduced Development Effort by 60%: The combination of a standardized design system and AI assistance streamlined our workflow, cutting down development time significantly.
• Improved Consistency Across Products: Users now experience a seamless interface when navigating between our products, reinforcing our brand identity.
• Enhanced Collaboration: With shared components and AI-assisted coding, our teams now collaborate more effectively, reducing silos and fostering innovation.
• Faster Time to Market: Reduced development time
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