Creating a design system that drives collaboration and communication efficiency
At ServiceRocket, I spearheaded the creation of a design system in collaboration with design, marketing, content, and engineering. Recognizing that employees lacked a central hub for essential resources like illustrations, brand guidelines, and copywriting, I addressed the inefficiency of accessing these assets across multiple platforms. This initiative aimed to streamline workflows and maximize productivity by centralizing readily available design patterns and resources.
Involvement
Led the design system initiative alongside my design lead and collaborated with the design, marketing, content and engineering teams
Made sure the initiative was on track by scheduling bi-weekly calls and tracking said initiatives using Jira tickets and timelines
Timeline
Jan 2024 - Dec 2024
Achievements
Addressed the challenges of design reinvention and departmental silos, resulting in a 200% increase in views and engagement.
Addressing the Disconnect
When I joined ServiceRocket, I noticed a lack of a platform where employees can access the company's resources, ranging from illustrations and graphics to guidelines on the company's brand and copywriting. Employees had to resort to going to various different platforms and pages to access said resources.
One employee I talked to mentioned that they had to go to three separate platforms just to get the necessary resources for their project. In today's fast-paced digital landscape, this felt like an unnecessary drag, a drain on valuable time and energy. It struck me as inefficient, especially considering the wealth of design patterns and resources readily available.
Factors to Consider
Creating an effective design system demands a careful balance between feasibility (what's technically achievable), viability (what's sustainable and useful for the organization), and desirability (what meets user and business needs). These three factors were central to the design system's development.
Several factors changed and impacted how we would look at the design system:
Feedback from employees
Limitations on the Confluence platform and available resources
The team’s unfamiliarity with a design system, as this me and team's first attempt at creating a design system
Exploring the Market
To understand more about design systems, my team conducted initial research into how the top companies in the world structured their respective design systems. This was compiled onto a board in the form of information architecture diagrams of design systems from companies such as Apple, Atlassian and Google. Key insights from other design systems include:
A majority of the design systems have similar IAs, including categories such as Foundation, Brand, Component and Patterns.
All of the design systems we looked at had no more than 6 categories in their design system. This adheres to Miller's Law, whereby the average person can only keep 7 (plus or minus 2) items in their working memory.
Most of their code implementations for their components are stored in a repository like GitHub.
Me and the team found that the Atlassian Design System stood out. It wasn't about any inherent bias, but rather their early recognition of a design system as a collaborative endeavor. This resonated deeply with the company's philosophy as ServiceRocket is an Atlassian Platinum Partner, so it's because of this main reason that me and the team decided to replicate Atlassian's design system structure for ours.
Planning out the Design System
With a structure for the design system in place, I set out to plan and create a design system roadmap to be shown to everyone involved in this initiative. I started out by creating a Design System Canvas, a one-page plan that will help with structuring implementation and garner buy-in from the top level executives in the company. The canvas addresses several topics such as:
Maturity level of the company
The consumers of the design system
The scope and available resources for the design system
Once the Design System Canvas is done and shown to everyone involved, I started creating a roadmap for the design system, planning it out to be implemented over a year and splitting the implementation into three phases:
Phase 1 - Foundational - This phase aims to establish a strong foundation for the design system
Phase 2 - Expansion - This phase aims to enhance the design system with additional components and functionality.
Phase 3 - Optimization and Growth - This phase aims to continuously improve the design system and address user needs.
After discussing with the team and finalizing the overall roadmap for the design system, I collaborated with the design, marketing, content and engineering teams to come up with deliverables for each quarter. These deliverables would be tracked on Jira and the team would have bi-weekly catchup meetings to discuss progress and potential roadblocks. After each quarter, I would conduct a retrospective on what went well and what could be improved. This whole process would be repeated for the remainder of the year.
Testing the Design System
In the midst of implementing the design system, I tested our initial information architecture with the employees of the company to see if it makes sense to them and if there should be any changes. I asked the employees to conduct card sorting for the various pages to get a better picture of which pages belong to which category.
Additionally, I asked the employees if there were any categories that they think should be renamed and surprisingly 90% said yes. When asked about which categories needed to be renamed, the Patterns and Foundation category came up as the top 2 results.
The IA test helped me and the team refine and finalise the design system's structure and its contents before properly launching it to the entire company.
Unveiling the Design System
After a year of dedicated effort from all involved teams, the Infinite Design System was finally ready for company-wide launch. From the very beginning, I made it a priority to involve our key partners in marketing, content, and development. My goal wasn't just to collect their feedback; it was to cultivate a sense of ownership and shared commitment to the system's success. This collaborative strategy ensured that the resulting design system wasn't just a design tool, but a truly cross-functional resource – inherently valuable, usable, and adaptable throughout ServiceRocket.
The end result is a central repository of design elements that could be leveraged not just by designers but across all of ServiceRocket, fostering efficiency and brand coherence. To ensure widespread adoption and utility across ServiceRocket, I proactively monitored how employees were accessing and utilizing the Infinite Design System. This involved regular testing of our internal search functionalities and our Rovo agent to identify and address any issues related to content discoverability.
Early Wins and Tangible Impact
The design system is already proving its worth since launch. It is being actively used by the whole company and received a commendation from the CEO for being a welcome change to the company's processes. Since its launch in December 2024, the design system saw a:
200%
Increase in views and engagement
Key Lessons Learned
This project gave me the opportunity to lead a large and ambitious initiative, something that wasn't without its ups and downs. Spearheading an initiative as big as this has taught me a lot of lessons, here are the three key takeaways:
It is paramount to get everyone involved from the start so everyone knows what is the end goal and how do we achieve that.
Collaboration and communication is important in an initiative as big as this, making sure everyone knows what how they can contribute and clearing up any uncertainties/blockers.
Design systems are different for each company, not every design system has to follow the same structure and materials. It is down to what the company needs and their unique circumstances and context.
Future Steps
Moving forward, the design system would undergo further refinement and user testing with the employees of the company to ensure that everyone in the company has what they need to achieve their goals.
