Adobe XD
2 months
Project Description
Development of a robust design system for a growing digital product portfolio (web and mobile) that required brand consistency, faster design-to-development handoff, and scalability across multiple teams.
Role
UX Designer, collaborating with a cross-functional team including Product Managers, Developers, and Brand/Marketing stakeholders.
Objective
Ensure Consistency: Centralize design decisions and brand elements in one source of truth.
Improve Efficiency: Reduce repetitive tasks, enable faster prototyping, and achieve consistent user experiences across platforms.
Scale Seamlessly: Accommodate new features, products, and brand evolutions without massive rework.
Problem Statement
We observed significant inconsistencies in design across our products, leading to a fragmented user experience and inefficiencies in the design and development process. Each product had its own visual language, UI components, and interaction patterns, making it challenging to maintain brand coherence and scalability. Recognizing the need for a unified approach, we decided to create a Design System—a centralized framework that a standardized design principles, reusable components, and clear documentation. This initiative ensures consistency across all products, enhances collaboration between designers and developers, accelerates development cycles, and ultimately improves the overall user experience.
Research and Comparative Analysis
Before defining our own design system, we studied several prominent systems used by global brands to understand best practices, governance models, and architectural structures. The systems we analyzed included:
• Adobe Spectrum - A unified design system focused on accessibility and color contrast, ensuring consistency across Adobe’s diverse product suite. It provides a customizable component library with detailed guidelines for usage and visual language.
• SAP Fiori - An enterprise-focused design language tailored for complex data-driven applications. It emphasizes data visualization, clarity in user workflows, and responsive design across web and mobile experiences using SAP’s proprietary UI framework.
• Salesforce Lightning - A modular component-based system designed for dynamic, drag-and-drop configurations within Salesforce’s ecosystem. It prioritizes reusability, standardization, and provides extensive documentation for building enterprise applications.
• IBM Carbon - A cross-platform design system optimized for data-heavy dashboards and applications. It features strong accessibility guidelines, robust design tokens (colors, typography, spacing), and a thriving open-source community with comprehensive documentation.
• Google Material Design - A widely adopted design system offering detailed guidelines, components, and motion/interaction patterns. It strikes a balance between minimalistic aesthetics and rich animations, making it ideal for consumer-facing applications, particularly on Android.
Goals and Constraints
• Brand Unification: We wanted a design system that would reflect our company’s brand identity—color palette, tone of voice, imagery—without being overly restrictive for future brand evolutions.
• Cross-Platform Consistency: Our product suite included web (React/Angular-based), iOS, and Android applications, so we needed components that worked seamlessly across multiple tech stacks.
• Time-to-Market: I was working in an agile sprint alongside my primary projects and had to make sure the design system is ready and other designers and developer have enough time to update their designs based on this new styling.
Solution
We developed a complete design library integrated with an Adobe XD Component Library Kit to streamline consistency, efficiency, and scalability across products.
This system includes a master design file containing reusable components, variations, and templates for rapid prototyping. By implementing design tokens—including an accessible color palette, standardized typography, and a responsive grid layout—we established a strong visual foundation. Additionally, our core components, such as buttons, inputs, navigation elements, and data display structures, provide a consistent user experience while supporting enterprise-level requirements
Results
Implementing the design system brought significant improvements for both designers and developers, leading to enhanced collaboration, efficiency, and product consistency.
For Designers:
Streamlined workflows with a centralized Component Library, reducing repetitive design work.
Faster prototyping using pre-built templates and reusable components.
Ensured brand consistency across products with standardized color, typography, and layout guidelines.
Improved accessibility and usability with built-in contrast checks and well-documented component states.
For Developers:
Accelerated development cycles with a single source of truth for UI components, reducing design-to-code inconsistencies.
Easier implementation with clearly defined props, states, and responsive layouts.
Enhanced collaboration with designers due to well-documented guidelines and reusable design tokens.
Reduced maintenance efforts by promoting scalability and modularity in UI components.
Overall, the design system created a seamless, scalable, and efficient product development process, improving both design quality and development speed while maintaining a unified user experience across all products.
