One token layer, seven platforms

Context

Sector Alarm is Europe's leading residential security provider. The product runs across seven platforms: iOS, Android, tablet, Apple Watch, Wear OS, web, and desktop. Each was designed and built independently, with its own patterns and visual language. 50% of customers reported difficulty managing security settings across devices. For a product where the core promise is peace of mind, a fragmented interface is a trust problem — not a UX problem. It says, implicitly, that the product doesn't hold together.

Challenge

No shared token layer, no design system, no engineer-accessible documentation. Every designer on every platform was solving the same spacing, colour, and interaction decisions independently. Any new pattern required a designer to be involved with every team that needed it. The most common approach to fixing this — iOS first, then extend to other platforms — creates a permanent hierarchy where iOS is the reference and everything else is a port. That wasn't the right model for a product that had to feel consistent whether you were arming your home on an Apple Watch or checking a sensor on a desktop browser.

My role

Lead designer on the system, via NoA. I owned the token architecture, component library, cross-platform coverage strategy, and the documentation written for engineers. The project ran from February 2021 to March 2022.

What I changed

• Built one token layer across all 7 platforms simultaneously rather than iOS-first then extend. Colour, typography, spacing, and motion defined at the token level before any component was built. Every platform draws from the same source — none can drift because all are downstream of the same definitions. No per-platform forks.
• Rejected the library-first approach. A shared Figma library fixes visual inconsistency between designers. It doesn't fix how engineers consume the system — and that's where most design intent breaks down in production. Tokens give engineers and designers the same source of truth.
• Documentation written for engineers and deployed via ZeroHeight as implementation guidance, not design specs. If an engineer can build a correct implementation without asking a designer, they will. The failure mode I was designing against was a system that required constant designer involvement to adopt.
• Coverage: iOS, Android, tablet, Apple Watch, Wear OS, web, and desktop — all from one token layer. Each platform is a first-class output, not an adaptation.

Outcome

CSAT: 48% to 91%. Task completion time: 2:10 to 55 seconds. Cross-device consistency unified across all 7 platforms. Red Dot Design Award and iF Design Award 2022 — both for the same project.