Project
Building scalable design systems
Client
Learnings
Year
2024
A design system is not a cut and paste template. A system is not effective if it’s not functional and practical to those who use it everyday. Design is essentially a middle man position. A designer has to keep stakeholders, users and engineers happy all at the same time. We have to make sure that we are creating products that will accomplish business goals, and also satisfy the end customer. However, a crucial part of a design system that is overlooked is the engineering handover process. If this step in the system is not considered, and there are no clear communication systems, it doesn’t matter how beautiful the product I designed is, it will not look and function how it was designed. I made it a goal last year to get as close as I can to understanding the frontend and backend process. I was very lucky to have lovely colleagues who were happy to teach me their systems and give feedback right away about what I can do to improve their workflow.
When planning features I now have a good understanding of what is a backend improvement, what is frontend, and roughly how long something will take. This is important in the design flow as it is easy to get carried away into designing multi complex new features that will solve everything perfectly, but if it’s not realistic to fit into the shipping timeline, my perfect feature isn’t so useful in the end.
I strive to always have clear expectations and communication with my project manager and add efficient component systems or add effective dev notes that speaks the language the PM and engineers need to see to move the quickest.