Design standards

Goal

To uncover and start resolving the largest gaps that the Design organization has in terms of design standards.

My role

Facilitate clarity of the project's scope
Create and conduct a holistic research plan for the effort
Create solutions in the form of design assets, mainly focused around concept low-fidelity materials
Work with other designers for transitioning from low-fidelity to high-fidelity solution work

Project outcomes

Establish
a
big picture

Establish a set of information that provides enough breadth where many concept solutions can be created.

Decrease the
largest design
standard gaps

Be able to identify and resolve top-most gaps and challenges related to design standards in the Design organization.

Increase rate
of creating
solutions

Accelerate the way that designers can concept solutions.

Key steps

1 / Define project scope

This project started with the direction of the VP of Design, so steps were taken to clarify the scope and timeline of the project. From there, I worked with a design manager to align on a rough project plan and set of tasks.

2 / Conduct interviews

A series of qualitative interviews were conducted with a set of design leadership and a set of designers. These were two key perspectives to understand for the effort so as to uncover any similarities or differences between them.

3 / Synthesize insights

A framework of behavioral design was used to tag 'atomic units' of research information. This information was then clustered and thematic insights were generated from there.

4 / Prioritize behavioral map

With thematic insights formed, a map between outcomes, behaviors, barriers, and solutions was created. The priority of importance was determined based on the found similarities between designers and design leadership. From there, work priority was additional chosen based on level of effort ("low hanging fruit").

5 / Create solutions

With a behavioral design mapping of insights in hand, draft solutions could be created to prepare for rapid solution evaluation.

Additional context

The project effort was split primarily between myself and one other senior design manager. We conducted this work over the course of a few weeks while simultaneously managing other, unrelated work.