Role

Design Facilitator

Tools

Post-its, Markers, Foam Boards, lots of snacks

Year

2019

At Global Savings Group, our product offerings span from web, app, chrome extensions and email newsletters. Over the course of time, inconsistencies show up due to the fact that there is no design system in place. Designers, developers, and other stakeholders need to speak the same vocabulary. Consistency between elements is important in terms of scaling a design system as well as providing the internal team a common vocabulary in order to have a shared understanding and to communicate better with each other in order to achieve our product's goals. This workshop is the beginning phase of bringing this need to light.

Problem

How can we see how inconsistencies in our products impact internal collaboration, understanding, and external product perception?

Process

1. Cut up all components within 4 different products
2. Group components in meaningful categories
3. Define what these components do
4. Define Components with highest perceived User Value
5. Define Components with highest perceived Business Value

Takeaways

Differing Vocabulary - We had different ways of perceiving a component. Some defined components based on how they function, some on how they're made, and some on how they look on the user's perspective. We will need to come to an agreement on this so that we're all on the same page when we talk about our components.
Inconsistencies within the same product - Through this workshop, we immediately saw visual inconsistencies for the same kind of component within one product. This may be due to pages being treated as separate new projects, rather than updating components that exist in all pages globally.

Next Steps

As we move forward with optimizing our product to have consistency that scales, the workshop documention serves to define all present components to communicate it with the rest of the development team as a working Glossary, which will help establish a common vocabulary in how we use these components. We also keep in mind the components that are important within the main userflow of our product and to assure that they are consistent within the design system.