Accessibility as leverage: the European Accessibility Act
New accessibility rules used as an argument that turns accessibility declarations into a concrete work plan.
A design system for an energy group with many brands
A design system for an energy group with many brands. A centre of excellence made up mostly of designers from my team develops it; I give strategic support and a toolchain that measures brand consistency.
In one sentence
A design system for an energy group with many brands, developed by a centre of excellence, to which I add strategic support and a toolchain that measures brand consistency.
The problem
Over the years the group acquired one company after another, and each had its own brand and its own way of designing. The result: 7–9 brands that grew organically and sit at very different levels of maturity. One has only a brand book in a PDF, another a design system documented in Notion, others full component libraries in Figma.
Team
The design system is developed by a centre of excellence, and a centre is its people. Most of them are designers from the product design team I lead. Each of us brings something different: I bring the strategy and the tools, Gabriela the direction and the lead of the CoE's design side, and the team its knowledge of the group's products, design systems, accessibility and research. Below, each person is described by what they do in this project.
Strategy and tools
Eryk Orłowski
Product Design Manager · CoE strategy and toolchain
I proposed the strategy of the centre of excellence and identified the business problems it can solve. I came up with, designed and built, with AI agents, the toolchain that measures brand consistency. I give the team strategic support and make sure it has the conditions to do its work.
Direction and lead of the CoE
Gabriela Sołowiej
Product Design Lead
Leads the design of the group's whole digital ecosystem: the mobile app for customers, the web portal and the B2B products for fleets, charging and payments. She co-founded the centre of excellence and leads its design side (a person on the client's side manages it as a whole): she sets the standards and the direction of the group's products in UX, UI and CX, also in the foreign companies in Germany, Hungary and the Czech Republic. She manages the team of designers and is responsible for the quality of the ecosystem's products.
- Design Leadership
- Design Systems
- WCAG
- CX
- Stakeholder Management
Experience
- Over 5 years at Efigence, since 2026 as Product Design Lead.
- Before that, banking products: mobile apps and internet banking, CRM systems, self-service portals for large institutions.
- Co-created a design system for a Middle Eastern bank in the central design team.
- WCAG accessibility certificate (widzialni.pl).
- Talks: UX Poland 2024 ("Design orient express — how to design for the Middle East"), ExFEST 2026 (on what happens if the AI we all rely on stops working tomorrow).
Team (alphabetical)
Maja Glinicka
Product Designer
Leads the redesign of the mobile app for fleet customers. She is also redesigning the mobile app for the Hungarian market and designing its version for the German market from scratch. Together with the team she runs discovery sessions in which she works out solution directions.
- Product Design
- UX Research
- Discovery
- UX/UI Design
- Mobile Design
Experience
- Over 6 years of designing digital products, from web and mobile apps to VR/AR solutions, AI-based products and chatbots.
- Designing for international markets: clients from Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, the USA and the Middle East.
- Presenting design concepts to the teams of a global payment technology company.
- Combining research with product analytics: from user research to measurement planning, conversion funnel analysis and the points where users drop off.
- Psychology in design practice: MA in psychology, a diploma from UX Design Institute and Glasgow Caledonian University, and the CPACC digital accessibility certificate (IAAP).
Paweł Łabuz
Senior Product Designer · Design Systems
Designs processes for two business sectors, audits existing solutions and co-develops the group's design system, whose architecture he co-created. He looks after the visual, structural and architectural consistency of the whole product and its WCAG accessibility. He supports other designers with consultations and design reviews, and builds advanced prototypes and animations.
- Design Systems
- Advanced prototyping
- Motion
- WCAG
- UX Audit
Experience
- Designing and developing design systems for the banking sector in the Polish, Middle Eastern and American markets.
- Designing internal systems that support business processes for an insurance company in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).
- Designing the information architecture and structure of complex systems for a global payment technology company.
- Auditing, rebuilding and developing the design system of a foodtech and e-commerce startup.
- Running design system training, promoting digital accessibility (WCAG), and the talk "KISS for DS" at Friends of Figma 2025.
Magdalena Łata
UI/UX Designer
Working with the group, she worked on the first version of the mobile app for the Hungarian market and on the design system for the web platforms. In the CoE she now designs and manages the design system together with Paweł Łabuz, including creating, developing and approving components.
- UI Design
- Interaction Design
- Design Systems
- WCAG
Experience
- 6 years in UI/UX design: projects for startups and large organisations, mostly in foreign markets, including clients from Saudi Arabia, the USA, China and Israel.
- A range of digital products: government and business systems, mobile apps (including banking and gamified ones) and services presenting sports statistics and rich data.
- Research and usability testing of a mobile banking app.
- Education: BA in Communication Design (School of Form) and postgraduate studies in UX & Product Design (AGH).
- Courses and certificates: WCAG accessibility certificate (Widzialni.eu) and courses in UI Design, Digital Design, Interaction Design and Webflow.
Paulina Miracka
UX/UI Designer
Develops the design system of the platform the group's websites run on: new components and patterns, documentation, preparation for implementation, information architecture. She designed the CMS for the mobile app for the Hungarian market, including the loyalty programme benefit configurator that guides the content author step by step.
- UI Design
- Design Systems
- WCAG 2.2
- Prototyping
Experience
- 9 years of designing websites and web and mobile apps, from user flows and wireframes to polished interfaces and interactive prototypes for the automotive, healthcare, FMCG, banking and beauty industries.
- Creating, documenting and developing scalable component libraries, interface patterns and design systems.
- Creating visual identities, key visuals, illustrations and graphics for brands from various industries.
- Certificates: accessible design (WCAG 2.2), building a design system in Figma.
Daniel Shevchenko
Senior UI/UX & Product Designer
For 3.5 years he has been responsible for the design and development of the group's loyalty app. He runs the product process end to end — from identifying new opportunities and creating concepts, through connecting user needs with business goals, market realities and technological possibilities, to preparing designs ready for implementation. As a member of the centre of excellence he supports the development of the digital ecosystem, looking after quality, standards and brand consistency across all digital channels.
- Product Design
- Product Discovery
- Design Systems
- UX Research
Experience
- Over 6 years in UI/UX, including work with international clients from various industries and designing B2C and B2B apps, corporate portals and SaaS platforms.
- Experience gained at a London design studio: interface design, UX research, responsive websites and visual identities.
- Co-founder of a marketing agency, responsible for business development, marketing strategies, delivering digital projects and results-driven activities.
- Projects recognised by Awwwards (Site of the Day, Honorable Mention).
What the team works on
A centre of excellence (CoE) at the client develops the design system. 6 people work in it, mostly designers from the product design team I lead. A person on the client side manages it.
The team is building a shared foundation from which every brand takes what is common and adds its own: colours, typography, character. Adding a brand comes down to changing settings. Decisions are written down, so that a year later someone can answer "why was it done this way". Products move to the new system in waves, in an order that follows risk and the readiness of the teams.
The decisions are delivered in sequence, and the CoE carries them out in stages. The centre also decides who maintains the system, how it takes in requests and how a new component gets into the library.
Tools that measure consistency
With several brands, consistency will not survive on designers' good will. This is my contribution to the team's work: I built a set of tools that regularly compares designs in Figma with the agreed standard and shows where they drift. Results go where the team already works: Notion, Jira and Confluence. An operator reviews every drift and decides what to do with it.
Colour contrast pairs are checked against WCAG 2.2 for every mode, including light, dark and mourning, and a failure stops publication. A new company in the group is one configuration file, with no code changes. Tokens carry a description meant for language models, so AI agents can use them too, and values set by hand are protected from being overwritten.
My role
The CoE team builds the design system. I give it strategic support, and my own contribution is the toolchain.
I came up with, designed and built the toolchain myself, working with AI agents. The client did not know that such tools could be built quickly, or that they could be built at all. I was the one who pointed out the business problems these tools solve.
The method from this project became the basis of Gromatik, described in a separate case study.
What this project proves
That I can add tools to a team's work that keep many brands consistent and leave the decision to a person. The system also has recorded decisions, a transition plan and an owner on the client side, so it does not depend on one person.
Contact
- [email protected]
- linkedin.com/in/eofek
Questions about: A design system for an energy group with many brands