Strategy: Defending and Supporting Design Systems
Overview + Challenge
At ADT, we recently stood up our new product design system, Nebula, and continue to evolve it to meet the needs of our future technology currently in development. However, as the number of active Nebula users and knowledge of the system grows, many in ADT who aren't designers and developers don't fully understand the purpose and value of what we had delivered with Nebula. Without a straightforward way to articulate the impact of our design system, we risk it being reduced to a one-time event to make our products look attractive and ultimately ignored as other product solutions had been before it. Our biggest challenge is to convert more non-designers into system evangelists and, by extension, secure organizational resources further to evolve it alongside our thriving digital product portfolio.
As UX practitioners, we focus on crafting products that positively impact people's lives. One notable challenge is that we don't always have the proper framework and vocabulary to communicate that impact, especially in the design system space. For Nebula, we look to other design system leaders for insight and arrived at three specific areas to focus on strategically to reinforce advocacy within our own organization. This strategy can also be applied to other organizations with similar scenarios:
By evaluating our design system across these three areas, we aim to paint a clearer picture of how Nebula is performing, prioritize areas for improvement and build a case for ongoing investment.
Teams 🚀
How do we identify Nebula's impact on teams in a tangible way? First, we prioritize collecting data that would speak to how much designers and developers use the system. Next, we look at the amount of time and energy saved. Finally, we consider the pace of ongoing releases across the product ecosystem and into the market. We draw on successful examples of others who inspired our strategic approach.
Adoption
Look to ADT's Github/Bitbucket repos to pinpoint design system elements and determine a percentage of active use
Hypothesis: By regularly collecting and plotting this data, usage steadily increases over time. This upsurge is a decisive vote for maintaining a healthy system moving forward
Conservation
Is Nebula increasing the capabilities of in-house design talent and saving resources?
Compare task completion time with and without the system tools
Hypothesis: Our team could gain a significant increase in efficiencies — the equivalent of roughly 3.5 designers worth of bandwidth by using Nebula (Example)
Speed
Focus on the amount of time between the build and release to market of a given feature and how we can reduce it
Hypothesis: Developers can build a feature several weeks faster than before using the design system, bolstering interest and energy across teams (Example)
Products ⚡️
As team satisfaction and efficiency increase, the quality of the product ecosystem must also do the same. To test this hypothesis, we pursued data that could indicate correlations between component usage and a reduction in bugs over time, as well as an increase in brand affinity.
Usage
Pressure test the overall relevance of Nebula and maximize component usage across ADT products. We will regularly assess which components we apply in our final products and which ones we don't
Hypothesis: Component usage will increase over time since the rollout of the design system and the uptick of internal education and promotion (Example)
Stability
Compare the number and severity of bugs reported on global components versus custom ones after the design system release
Hypothesis: The overall quality of the product portfolio will increase as product and engineering teams adopt the design system (Example)
Alignment
Ask customers to compare Nebula designs pre and post-release to understand how they align with the ADT brand
Hypothesis: Screens leveraging the design system foster a more robust brand affinity overall (Example)
End-Users 🤘🏻
How could we prove that those interacting with the system most distantly from the source — the end-users immersed in our live products — were also benefiting from it? Some data that might provide critical insight included whether experiences exceeding performance expectations, had a positive level of usability and whether end-users were satisfied with interactions with the brand.
Performance
Compare app screen load times and accessibility scores before and after system deployment
Hypothesis: The design system will only improve speed and compliance, suggesting that the products will become easier for end-users in more instances (Example)
Usability
Compare product task completion rates before and after system adoption
Hypothesis: Rates will see an exponential increase (upwards of 3x) after system rollout due to design continuity and ease of use (Example)
Satisfaction
To evaluate Nebula's impact, connect with customers to understand their experience satisfaction with our product features and identify trends over time
Hypothesis: Customer satisfaction will increase as the products leverage the design system
This three-step strategy can help to build a case for further investment in the design system by:
Collecting richer data to validate the design system impact
Creating a compelling story around wins and opportunities
Projecting what the company stands to gain with additional time and resources allocated
Since Nebula was only recently implemented, our UX design team is currently using this advocacy strategy to help bolster the system for our future, with key data points still being gathered as our products near releases over the next year.
By gathering feedback from those who craft, develop, and use your products — as well as various internal systems themselves — defending your design system should be an essential, recurring part of your product growth process. It will pay off with dividends for both you and your end-users.