Product & Technology
Document Berean's emerging design system
Spend four months helping turn Berean's existing interface patterns into practical design-system documentation while building substantial professional experience in component analysis, reusable UI systems, and design documentation.
Location and volunteer status
Unpaid volunteer opportunity. You choose whether to participate and may stop volunteering. No wages or future paid position are promised. The assignment describes the work, expected effort, supervision and any approved expense reimbursement before you accept.
Remote. Work and meetings take place online. No routine travel or in-person attendance is required. Any exception will be stated in the opportunity and agreed before you accept. Please review any location or work-eligibility requirements listed for this particular role.
What you'll help Berean build
Turn a growing collection of interface decisions into a usable design-system foundation.
Berean already has substantial interface work across its public website, admissions experience, Open Reference Library, internal tools, and other digital products.
What it does not yet have is a consistently documented system that explains which patterns are reusable, how they should behave, how they relate to one another, and where implementation decisions should remain consistent.
Your Project is to help convert those existing patterns into an organized, practical first generation of design-system documentation.
What you'll actually do
Study existing product patterns, identify what is reusable, and document it clearly.
- Review selected Berean screens, interface exports, and recurring UI patterns.
- Identify repeated component structures, states, spacing conventions, typography, color use, and interaction patterns.
- Help distinguish reusable system patterns from page-specific solutions.
- Document selected components, including purpose, anatomy, states, behavior, usage guidance, and accessibility considerations.
- Organize core design tokens and recurring visual decisions where the existing work supports them.
- Work with the Berean product contact to resolve inconsistencies or unclear cases.
- Produce a coherent documentation package another designer or developer can use without having to reconstruct the system from screenshots.
What you'll produce
A tangible design-system documentation package.
A documented first-generation design-system foundation covering the agreed set of components, visual tokens, interaction states, usage guidance, and accessibility notes, organized so Berean's designers and developers can continue extending it after the Project ends.
What you'll practice and develop
This Project is designed to create real, describable professional experience.
Learn to identify reusable UI patterns across multiple products and screens.
Practice writing component guidance that is useful to both designers and developers.
Organize recurring visual decisions into a more systematic token structure.
Document states, behavior, and accessibility considerations as part of system design.
Translate design intent into documentation that supports implementation.
Gain experience organizing a system while the institution and its products are still evolving.
What experience you should already have
You do not need to be a senior design-systems specialist.
This Project is intended for someone who already understands the basics of UX/UI design and reusable interface components and wants deeper practical experience applying those ideas in a real product environment.
- Foundational UX/UI design experience.
- Familiarity with components, variants, or reusable interface patterns.
- Ability to evaluate visual and interaction consistency.
- Comfort writing clear design documentation.
- Enough independence to work through defined material between check-ins.
Previous formal employment on a design-system team is not required.
What Berean provides
You will work from existing product material, not from a blank page.
- Existing Berean interface examples and screen references.
- Current component and pattern examples where available.
- Existing visual rules, typography, spacing, color, and interaction references.
- Access to the relevant Figma or exported design materials where appropriate.
- A responsible Berean product contact.
- Defined check-ins for questions, feedback, and scope alignment.
- A clear final deliverable and completion standard.
How the Project is structured
A defined professional engagement with predictable support.
Review the existing work, Project boundaries, working materials, expected deliverable, and communication rhythm.
Identify the first set of reusable patterns and agree on how the documentation will be organized.
Complete independent documentation work between scheduled check-ins with the responsible Berean contact.
Review progress, workload, scope, quality, questions, and what should change for the remaining half of the Project.
Complete the agreed documentation package, address final review items, and close the Project through a defined offboarding process.
Professional value
You should leave with experience you can describe concretely.
Successful completion gives you a real professional Project to describe: analyzing a live product environment, identifying reusable UI patterns, documenting components and system decisions, working through feedback, and delivering a structured design-system foundation.
Berean guarantees
- A formal Berean completion/service letter.
- Verification of the Project title, term, responsibilities, and completed deliverable.
- Permission to identify the experience on your résumé or CV.
- Portfolio use where confidentiality, intellectual-property, security, and third-party restrictions permit.
Where professionally warranted
- A professional reference.
- A personalized LinkedIn recommendation.
- Named professional credit where attribution is appropriate to the work.
These forms of endorsement depend on the quality and substance of the work and are not guaranteed simply because the Project term ends.
You're finished when
The agreed documentation package is complete and usable.
The Resume Builder Project is complete when the agreed component and design-system documentation package has been delivered, reviewed, final required revisions have been addressed, and Berean confirms that the defined Project scope has been completed.
Selection process
Expressing interest starts a review; it does not commit you to four months of work.
Because this is a substantial structured Project, the initial interest form asks for more information than an ordinary short Help Us Launch Task.
Berean will review your background, baseline skills, availability, and interest in the Project. Plausible candidates may be invited to a professional conversation before an Assignment Offer is made.
If Berean offers you the Project, you will review the actual Assignment, Project term, weekly commitment, expectations, and applicable terms before deciding whether to accept.
You are not assigned merely because you expressed interest.
Interested in the Project?
Tell us about your experience, interest, and availability.
The Resume Builder interest form is more detailed than the standard Help Us Launch form because Berean needs to understand baseline skills, professional fit, and whether the four-month commitment is realistic.