Pegasus Design System: Scaling Design & Leadership at McAfee

When I embarked on the journey of creating Pegasus, McAfee’s design system, I was a Senior Product Designer with a vision to unify and streamline the design process across multiple legacy platforms. Over time, this initiative evolved into a full-time leadership role, culminating in my transition to Product Design Manager, where I led a dedicated team in scaling Pegasus into a robust and widely adopted system.

Problem

McAfee’s product ecosystem was fragmented, with inconsistent UI components, redundant design efforts, and platform inefficiencies, leading to higher costs and limited scalability.

Solution

Developed Pegasus, a scalable design system that unified UI components, improved workflow efficiency, and introduced governance to streamline cross-platform design consistency.

Impact

✔️40% reduction in redundant design work
✔️ 50% faster UI development cycles
✔️ Organization-wide adoption and improved design-development collaboration

My Role

Led the strategy, team building, execution, and advocacy or Pegasus, managing stakeholder alignment, design system governance, and engineering collaboration to drive adoption.

The Challenge: Unifying McAfee’s Product Ecosystem for Efficiency

McAfee’s product ecosystem was deeply fragmented—each platform had its own UI inconsistencies, redundant design efforts, and a lack of scalability. The absence of a unified design system created inefficiencies, increased development costs, and impacted the user experience.

Additionally, design systems as a discipline were emerging, requiring us to define best practices while managing the cultural shift within the organization. To make Pegasus a success, I had to treat it like a product, complete with stakeholder alignment, team assembly, and agile development.

Building the Team & Defining the Vision

How it started

Initially, Pegasus was a side project I was working on as a Senior Designer. However, our VP of Design saw the potential and suggested that I transition into a managerial role to properly build and scale the initiative. This was a turning point—I not only had to hire the right talent but also establish the foundation for a scalable system.

The Team

Inherited: One senior developer (who lacked deep technical expertise in design systems)
Hired:
- Lead Developer (to build the system architecture)
- Product Designer (to ensure visual and interaction consistency)
- Intern (to support research and documentation)

With the right mix of skills, we could move from an ad-hoc approach to a structured, product-driven methodology.

An early version of the Pegasus Design System hub in Notion, organizing plans, development, and resources for the team

The Approach: Treating Pegasus Like a Product

To gain adoption and credibility, Pegasus needed more than just a library of components—it needed governance, scalability, and integration across McAfee’s ecosystem. I structured the project into three key phases:

1. Foundation

Decoupled assets (icons, typography, components) from existing apps
Built a Figma library for designers
Established a React-based component library for engineers
Created documentation in ZeroHeight to ensure easy onboarding
Transitioned design tools from Sketch + InVision to Figma, making McAfee an early adopter and significantly reducing costs

2. Implementation & Adoption

Rolled out Pegasus Base for desktop and web
Launched Pegasus Lite (CSS framework & tokens) for flexibility across legacy systems
Partnered with engineering teams to integrate Pegasus into McAfee’s core products
Developed an agile contribution model to ensure scalability and shared ownership

3. Scaling & Maturity

Introduced advanced features: dark mode, motion guidelines, accessibility standards
Expanded support for mobile platforms
Integrated automated QA testing for engineering readiness
Built governance models to scale beyond our immediate team

A work-in-progress look at the Pegasus workflow, mapping how design assets and components flow from designers to developers.

Key Achievements & Impact

Quantifiable Success

407+ components adopted across multiple products
3,900+ elements styled with Pegasus Lite
Reduced redundant design work by 40%
Improved product design-to-development cycle efficiency, decreasing UI development time by 50%

Cultural & Organizational Impact

Established cross-functional collaboration between design and engineering
Shifted McAfee’s design approach from isolated, ad-hoc efforts to a systematic and scalable practice
Inspired company-wide adoption, positioning Pegasus as a foundational tool in McAfee’s product development

The internally released version of the Pegasus Design System, serving as the central hub for consistent UI components and guidelines.

Leadership Growth: From Crafting Systems to Cultivating Teams

Personal Growth: Discovering My Passion for Leadership

Through Pegasus, I realized that design leadership extends beyond pixels and prototypes—it’s about building teams, fostering collaboration, and driving organizational change. Transitioning from an individual contributort a manager was a pivotal career moment.

After successfully handing off Pegasus to another manager, I stepped into the Product Design Manager role, focusing on growing and mentoring product designers, ensuring their work was strategic and impactful.

Lessons Learned & Reflections

Early stakeholder alignment is critical—buy-in from leadership ensures long-term success
Treating a design system like a product creates a structured roadmap for adoption
Hiring the right talent and building a team is more important than trying to do everything solo
A design system isn’t just about components—it’s about enabling teams to work more efficiently and consistently

Final Thoughts: The Legacy of Pegasus

Pegasus started as an idea and grew into McAfee’s first scalable design system, impacting teams and products company-wide. More than that, it shaped my career trajectory, helping me transition from a designer to a leader. This experience solidified my passion for people management, cross-functional collaboration, and design leadership—principles I continue to apply in my career today.

Aki Tanaka