A design operations internship spent making a thirty-person design team's Figma workspace easier to search, understand, and keep current. I audited the workspace, talked to the people working inside it, and left behind conventions the team could adopt without adding tedious process.
TIMELINE
Jun - Aug 2026
TEAM
~30 designers, researchers, and managers
ROLE
UX Design Operations Intern
TOOLS
Figma, Figma REST API, FigJam
OVERVIEW
Design work is only useful if someone can find it later
Flexera's design team had grown faster than its conventions for organizing work, which happens to most teams that ship for years. Finished, paused, and active files sat side by side, so identifying the current version of something often meant asking around the team instead of being able to search for it. I spent the summer working across the team, auditing the workspace and talking to the people using it, then wrote a set of conventions built around how they already worked.
THE PROBLEM
Most of the workspace was work nobody was doing anymore
Rather than clicking through hundreds of folders, I pulled the workspace through the Figma REST API so I could look at every file's name, location, and last modified date at once. About two-thirds of accessible files had not been touched in a year. None of that is unusual at this size, but it meant dormant work outnumbered active work roughly two to one, and search couldn't tell the two apart.
HOW I APPROACHED IT
Workspace data on one side, the people using it on the other
Workspace audit
Pulled file names, locations, and modified dates through the Figma REST API, then compared patterns across product areas.
Talking to the team
Around 15 conversations with designers, researchers, and managers, plus a team-wide survey, about how people find, share, and hand off work.
Building recommendations
Looked at what different product areas already did well, then shaped the conventions around those patterns instead of importing a system from outside.
KEY INSIGHT
The team already had the habits worth keeping. Several product areas archived well, most files carried recognizable ticket numbers, and people were actively using the existing cover page.
My job was to standardize what was already working, not to replace it.
WHAT I RECOMMENDED
Four connected areas
STRUCTURE
Give work a predictable home based on the product, so people know where to start looking before they resort to search.
NAMING
Put status at the front of the file name so it is visible and searchable without opening anything.
CONTEXT
A lighter framing template and a refreshed file cover page, plus a version history section so the next designer can pick the work up as the team shifts and grows.
MAINTENANCE
Lightweight habits and an automated reminder, so the system stays true without anyone having to police it.
WHERE IT LANDED
What I handed off
Before finalizing anything, I took the recommendations back to the team and asked whether each one would actually help or just add tediousness. The internship ended with a handoff of the full findings and a phased plan for rolling the conventions out one product area at a time, starting small and expanding once the approach felt stable. Adoption is the team's call and their timeline.
THE FULL CASE STUDY
The detailed version covers the audit method, what the conversations surfaced, and the full recommendations I gave. Because the work involves internal process and files, it is available on request rather than published here.
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