- ClientDell
- DeliverableInteractive Prototype
Context
Working for a team within Dell, like most enterprises, there will be adjacent teams and stakeholders with differing agendas and goals that will affect the outcome of your project. As much as you try to identify and plan for project risks, some may come to pass regardless of your efforts. In this case, the design system we were tasked with creating for Dell would be mired by competing design systems with overlapping components and applications.
Making the case for the business is as important as the work itself.
As hard as we had worked to research the current functionality of their components across web, mobile and native applications to improve usability at the foundations, ideated using the most difficult use cases, and executed on beautiful, usable components, we still had to help the Dell team make the case for DLS 2.0.
Action
While I was in the thick of tightening the bolts of the system; ensuring all of the components have the right amount of customization for a design team to use freely, and writing design guidelines, I was tasked with solving two problems.
1. Find a way to give Dell a road map to complete the work we had been doing on the design system and expand on it in the future.
2. Make the case for our design system over others for designers, engineers and executives.
To solve both, I created a Figma prototype that would function as a design system website to show off the guidelines and components, but also allow input from designers to improve the system with oversight by the Dell team.
Ultimately, the “site” featured multiple levels of site navigation and over 60 unique pages, and a linked Google form to suggest new components or edits to existing ones.
Result
Dell was ecstatic to have all of the newly created 850+ components and 160 styles available for all to see in an easy to access location. Using this site, our Dell team successfully evangelized the new design system across their massive organization, absorbed several other design system efforts, and have continued to use the federated model to grow and refine the system.
My vacation coincided with our final presentation so I recorded a Loom video to walk through all of the nuances of the system, site and where they should focus their next efforts.
