Design system product scope

Goal

To define and scope a problem space for a design system.

My role

Create and conduct research efforts including qualitative interviews, quantitative surveys, and collaborative workshop activities
Promote an evidence-based approach to define a product problem space
Provide onboarding to new team members
Work with the team to incorporate this work into an existing agile process

Project outcomes

Improve
understanding

Improve understanding of current design system expectations from teams across the company.

Align
the team

Align the design system team around an evidence-based problem space.

Establish
priority

Establish a framework to prioritize the design system team's work based on the problem space.

Key steps

1 / Research

Conduct research to gather a holistic picture of two core user types of a design system.

2 / Co-analyze

Create and facilitate design team workshops that co-analyze the research for shared insights and next steps.

3 / Formalize

Incorporate all insights into key artifacts such as a story map and team backlog items.

4 / Share

Publish articles for the broader company to increase trust and transparency for the design system's vision.

Additional context

This work was conducted over a prolonged duration of time (over two years). Heavy investment of time was spent toward the beginning of the duration. Initially, this work was prompted by the merging of two design system teams. This work was also a mechanism to co-create a shared vision of a design system.