Verse
A Microsoft Fluent-based Design System
Leadership
System Thinking
Accessibility
Scalable Framework
My role:
Visual UX Design Team Lead + Developer Relations
Tools:
Figma, JIRA
Verse is a Microsoft Fluent-based design system created to unify the visual language of Nuance Mix—a platform for designing conversational AI experiences. Built to bring clarity, accessibility, and consistency to a complex suite of enterprise tools, Verse served as the foundation for scalable, modern UX across Mix’s dashboard, NLU, and dialog products.
The challenge
Over time, inconsistencies emerged across Mix’s expanding toolset. Microsoft’s acquisition created a timely opportunity to align the platform through a unified, scalable design system.
The problem
Nuance Mix lacked visual and functional consistency across its conversational AI tools. After Microsoft’s acquisition, aligning with Fluent 2 became essential. Without a unified system, teams faced challenges in efficiency, accessibility, and scalability.
The goal
Create a flexible, Microsoft Fluent-based design system—Verse—that brings visual clarity, accessibility, and speed to every part of the Mix platform, while enabling cross-team scalability and developer alignment.
The Approach
A strategic, collaborative process to simplify and structure the Mix ecosystem.
Audit & Foundations
Reviewed Mix tools to identify inconsistencies, redundancies, and visual debt.
System Architecture
Created a Fluent-aligned atomic system for tokens, typography, spacing, color, and accessibility.
Accessibility
Applied standards for contrast, keyboard behavior, and semantic structure.
Component Library
Built scalable Figma components with variants, states, and developer parity in Storybook.
Platform Integration
Partnered with teams to implement components across IVR, chatbot, NLU, and dialog tooling.
Documentation
Developed internal docs for adoption, naming conventions, and smooth design-to-dev handoff.
My Contribution
I led the full lifecycle of Verse—from strategy to execution:
Strategic Vision
Defined core principles, visual direction, and brand alignment for the system.
System Architecture
Built scalable structure and logic to support flexibility and growth.
Cross-Functional Leadership
Led dev and PM collaboration across teams.
Accessibility Compliance
Ensured Fluent 2 and a11y standards alignment.
Scalable Adoption
Drove adoption via training and design reviews.
A Microsoft Fluent based design system
Verse
Microsoft +
Nuance Mix platform
Principles
Clean
Modern
Consistent
Accessible
Scalable
Verse is the language of clarity—built to bring order to complexity.
Grounded in Microsoft Fluent, it scales across enterprise tools with structure, accessibility, and visual harmony.
Platform
Verse delivers a unified design framework that scales across Mix’s enterprise tools.
From IVR and chatbot builders to NLU modeling and dialog flow design, Verse turns complexity into a modular system that’s easy to use, accessible, and consistent—end to end.
One System, Every Screen
From global components to full-page layouts, Verse powers every part of the Mix experience.
Each screen shares a visual language—ensuring clarity, accessibility, and developer alignment from start to scale.
Nuance Mix
Dashboard
Create/manage projects, configure limits and locales, assign teams, manage domains, external resources, and data packs.
Manage tab
Review builds, deploy models to different environments beyond sandboxes for integration testing.
NLU
Develop and optimize Mix models with intuitive tabs and workflow tooling.
Dialog
Design conversational flows and interactions with structured logic and component integration.
Impact
Outcomes
Unified Mix’s interface with a shared visual language
Accelerated design-to-dev workflows
Improved accessibility and cross-functional efficiency
Reduced redundant design effort across teams
System Scale
60 Verse components
Category 1
(34 Components)
Category 2
(4 Components)
Category 3
(17 Components)
100 Components for Mix
Shared
(11 Components)
Dashboard
(27 Components)
NLU
(13 Components)
Dialog
(40 Components)
People & Timeline
7 UX Designers
40-50 Developers (5 teams)
55 People
(4 months)
35,000+ hours
Implementation is underway. Verse is being rolled out in three phases—starting with the Dashboard (Microsoft tenant first), followed by NLU and Dialog. The target is to achieve full accessibility and enhanced keyboard control across both Microsoft and Nuance tenants by the end of the year