Avoca — Design System

Design systems, Product design, Development, Health

Avoca is a Y Combinator-backed operations platform for radiology, used across 250+ clinics including Lumus, Synergy and Queensland Radiology. I joined in October 2026 as Principal Product Designer to give a fast-shipped product one design system.

Avoca Design System
Role
Principal Product Designer
Team
Product and engineering, through Owlry
Timeline
2026–present
Platform
Web

250+

clinics on the platform

14px

base, type scale ~1.2

1

table pattern, two filter modes

The problem

A product built one screen at a time

Each table, filter, drawer, pill, form and empty state had been built for the screen in front of it. Together they felt assembled, not designed.

Calm next to clinical software

Front-desk teams use Avoca beside clinical systems like Comrad, Karisma, Visage and Epic, handling calls, bookings, referrals and faxes all day. It has to feel calm and trustworthy, not shout for attention.

The Avoca dashboard: bookings, resolved calls, satisfaction and peak times
Demand Avoca absorbed this week: bookings, calls resolved without staff, time saved and peak hours.

My role

Giving existing work a direction

I lead the design system and product design, part time through Owlry. Engineering was already moving screens onto shared components, so I gave that work a direction and a standard.

The process

Audit first, then a scorecard

I audited the components, brand guidelines and lint rules, starting with the Services UI, which touches the most clinic workflows.

Three words to check every screen

The brand qualities became a scorecard, turning "I don't like it" into a question the team can answer.

01The scorecard

Grounded

Does it feel calm beside clinical systems?

02The scorecard

Assured

Would a front-desk team trust it mid-shift?

03The scorecard

Intelligent

Does it show what Avoca has done before asking for more?

The Avoca logomark and wordmark
The mark: quiet, precise and confident beside clinical systems.

The solution

A locked direction, one table, two filter modes

Locking the direction

  1. 18 October

    Soft glow, with Inset v2

    Chosen as the visual direction.

  2. 19 October

    A 14px base and a ~1.2 type scale

    Set with a co-worker.

  3. 29 October to 4 November

    Five table review rounds

    One table pattern, refined in Figma.

A 14px base suits dense operational screens, and a 1.2 scale makes a worklist quick to scan.

Type scale

Stepping up by about 1.2

  1. Step 535pxBookings this week
  2. Step 429pxResolved calls
  3. Step 324pxToday's worklist
  4. Step 220pxReferral received
  5. Step 117pxPatient called back about a booking
  6. Base14pxFax from the referring clinic, matched to an existing booking
Avoca type specimens across dashboard and worklist layouts
Type tested in real layouts.

One table pattern, two filter modes

Most of Avoca is tables, so one pattern covers them all.

Default

Standard

For reading the rows.

Only when filtering is the work

Triage

For sorting the rows.

The component library
The shared library screens move onto, one at a time.

Next: service catalogue and rostering

Next, clinic managers will run their own rosters without Avoca in the loop.

The impact

Three weeks in

The direction, type scale and table pattern are agreed and moving into the product.

Reflection

Agree on the scorecard first

To bring order to a fast-moving product, agree on the scorecard first. Once it was written down, reviews became shorter and less personal.

Through Owlry

Cyventine

Quit Program

Product design, Development, Health

Read the case study