Weeknotes No.56
Is January the longest month ever? Seems to have been the start of the year for months now, is my calendar app just broken on my Macbook or phone?
Wow, work has ramped up hugely since we last spoke. The design system has gone on a roadshow (which I’ve loved seeing others talk about), people are using it, people are talking about it and there seems to be a buzz in the air.
Just a soft nudge, my contract ends March 30th, so if the below or my past posts and work around leading design in teams, or implementing a design system - feels like something you could do with - please give me a shout!
What did I enjoy:
If we switch gears and look at Bobbin and Bumble, we did some planning, and I love any discovery and alpha phase of a project and this was no different. We planned out the next 6 months of work whilst I was driving to Tamworth, who needs a whiteboarding tool? I am excited to see where Emma takes this company over the forthcoming year, but I’m less excited for that to involve email design and build.
Back to FCA, we tested the design-system’s complimentary prototype kit by handing it over to a colleague and, well it worked and worked well.
Join in with me when I do a huge sigh of relief.
With any design system and wider buy-in, the process is almost dot to dot:
- talk about the thing
- build the thing
- show the thing whilst building the thing
- gather feedback about the thing
- and then talk about the thing
We find ourselves somewhere between gathering feedback and presenting powerpoints, metrics, rollout plans and online or face to face training on using a prototype kit - love this!
Within the design system are Design Principles, Accessibility Guidelines, a prototype kit, a list of 12 components and 4 patterns (all weighted against high impact, low effort), it’s been hard work to get here - but the team have been nothing but brilliant in supporting the build and providing a lot of noise around it.
I believe the value of a design system is clear to see, but there still needs to be work around removing the fear of additional workload and how we safely and clearly roll this out with little disruption to an already existing way of working.
What am I looking forward to next week?
More of the above, we should be rolling out the design system for everyone to access, am I expecting perfection - nope, but I am expecting noise and feedback which I’m looking forward to.
On my e-commerce side, we are building out campaigns, and re-designing the home page, which I’m excited about (more the emailers, as working in previous roles I know first hand the potential of those).
As mentioned, my current contract as Lead Interaction Designer comes to an end soon, please get in touch if you need someone like me.
Watch of the week:
A short and sweet one this week, I watched this video this morning with a coffee and was in awe of what these two have done, and how they’ve done it.
As a co-owner (just..) of a family run business that is very much in it’s stages of scaling up, I felt the passion and mission of this presentation, and seeing the reaction from the ‘Dragons’ was incredible.