Multiple teams across AmerisourceBergen owned language at different points in the user experience: marketing, training and development, and product. Each team worked in a silo, with no shared process or collaboration between them. Designers across the org also wrote in-product copy from scratch every time, with no shared vocabulary, no tone guidance, and no grammar standards to check against. The only reference available was the marketing style guide, built for a different audience and a different job.
APOLLO DESIGN SYSTEM
In 2019, AmerisourceBergen launched Apollo, its design system, with best practices, design assets, and web components supporting rapid prototyping for in-house applications, but no content foundation. I built AmerisourceBergen's first content foundation for the design system, driving adoption across two platforms serving 40,000+ employees and external pharmacy owners.
Our bet was that a robust content section would help the design team create in-product copy faster and build more consistent experiences.
The Challenge
What I Did
1. Audited the current state before writing anything.
Reviewed BrandBase (AmerisourceBergen's brand system), studied e-commerce user personas, and audited three live products to see how voice, grammar, and vocabulary actually showed up, not just how they were documented.
2. Interviewed designers and built cross-functional alignment.
Interviewed 16 designers across the org in 1:1 sessions to learn where they got stuck writing copy, then built recurring touchpoints with marketing and branding leadership to keep the work aligned as it developed.
3. Built a four-part content style guide.
Principles and voice guidelines for overall approach, plus grammar and mechanics and an in-product word list for day-to-day decisions.
4. Took the guide on the road.
Presented to AmerisourceBergen's Design Community of Practice, marketing and branding leadership, IT and the Digital Transformation office, business communications, and the knowledge management team, reaching 500+ people across the org.
Result
The guide was adopted across two platforms: AmerisourceBergen's digital employee experience platform, serving 40,000+ team members, and the AB Solutions Portal, used by external pharmacy owners, embedding content standards that operated beyond the design team that built them.
