The Generic Design System (GDS) was developed by CARIAD, the software company of the Volkswagen Group. It provides a shared UX and UI foundation for digital products across several Volkswagen brands, including apps, web platforms, and in-car interfaces.
The core challenge was that each brand had its own design teams, processes, and visual identity. But all brands shared the same underlying software platform. Without a common system, every team was solving the same problems independently, leading to duplicated work, inconsistencies, and slower development cycles.
The goal was to create one scalable, brand-agnostic design system that enables all brands to build consistent, high-quality digital experiences faster and with less redundancy.
It's all about scaling and reusability - with the Generic Design System, we implement the front ends of our services for multiple brands, while enabling a specific look and feel for the brands and their customers. This way, we reduce time to market and work extremely cost-efficiently.
The Process: From Brand Requirements to common UX/UI Guidelines
The Generic Design System was developed in Figma by dedicated UX and component design teams in collaboration with the VW Brands. My role sat at the critical bridge between this design work and the brand teams who needed to understand, adopt, and implement it.
Collect Requirements of Brands
Brand teams defined their specific needs and constraints. This required continuous alignment across UX, product, and engineering stakeholders from multiple organizations.
Design System Development in Figma
Dedicated component teams built the GDS in Figma with reusable UI components, interaction patterns, layout guidelines, design tokens, and brand variation frameworks.
Translating the System into UX/UI Guidelines (Frontify)
This was my core responsibility: taking the outputs of the Figma-based design system and translating them into clear, structured, accessible documentation in Frontify, which acts as the single source of truth for all brand teams. It contains every main component, pattern, inclusive guidelines and many more.
Brand Adaptation for Serial Development
Individual brands applied their own visual identity on top of the shared UX structure, which is supported directly by the documentation I maintained.
My role as a Senior UX Specialist — GDS Guideline Documentation:
- Led and executed the full GDS documentation for Solution Train 1.2 and 2.0 in Frontify
- Translated complex Figma design outputs into clear, structured, and brand-ready documentation covering components, interaction patterns, layout guidelines, design tokens, and usage examples
- Collaborated closely with the software departments of VW, Škoda, CUPRA, Audi, and Porsche to ensure documentation reflected actual implementation requirements
- Led and coordinated supplying design teams contributing to documentation in an agile setup
- Managed Frontify as the central knowledge platform maintaining quality, consistency, and accessibility across all brand teams
Design Handoff: From the UX/UI Guidelines to the actual Product
As a UX Lead, I later took the ownership of the handoff process bridging finalized designs and a developer team that is responsible for the implementation of the vehicle interface.
My role as a UX Lead — CAR Settings (HMI Specification)
- Led a developer team implementing GDS-compliant designs into the vehicle interface for the “CAR Settings” ART Solution
- Owned the complete Design Handoff process from finalized Figma specs to production-ready implementation
- Ensured alignment between design intent and technical execution throughout the serial development cycle
Impact for the Volkswagen Group
- The GDS documentation has been successfully adopted across the major Volkswagen Group brands
- Frontify has been stablished as the reliable single source of truth
- The team achieved a consistent UX across apps, web, and in-car interfaces enabled in part by documentation that made the system understandable and usable at scale
- Successful serial development handoff in CAR Settings based on GDS designs und UX/UI Guidelines implemented into production vehicle software
