Creating DesignOps - Ashley R. Smith - Senior Experience Designer

Goals Overview

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Create a Solid Foundation for Growing a Design System

We set to create the first precedent for a design process and system that can be updated over time. This is especially valuable for future Product Design hires.

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Increase consistency and expectation in the a designer's role

Product Managers had different ideas of what a to expect from a Product Designer. This slowed down output for design and often led to misunderstandings.

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Educate on the value and purpose of Product Design

A better understanding of Product Design and how it brings value creates a more confident working environment for stakeholders who work directly with designers.

Priority

Since this was Uno's first step into building DesignOps, we decided to focus on 3 assets that will benefit the team immediately: Creating an MVP design process, defining design guidelines, and building current and ideal user flows.

An assets we decided not to focus on with the first phase was building a component and pattern library since Uno does not have a desktop or mobile product that is end-user facing.

Solutions & Process

Design Process

Solution Overview

The V1 of the design process is very similar to a standard design process, but with some tweaks that considered Uno's needs:

Defined which steps are required vs. skippable. "Skippable” steps consider the fast-paced nature of product releases, with cycles running as little as 1 week.
High-fidelity prototypes are not always necessary. For smaller features, a wireframe or quick description of what to change is sufficient.
As the Product Designer, I advocated to keep problem definition and reviews as required because it was common for leaders to not be informed of the purpose of certain feature releases, resulting in a lot of rework. Reviewing at every step is a way to avoid confusion through leaders being apart of the decision-making process pre-sprint.

We expanded on each step in the process by answering 3 questions:

When is this step is needed?
What questions do designers need answered during this step for them to move forward?
What design activities can help us execute this step?

We also specified which internal stakeholders were necessary for each step.

In general, we decided to approach the process as a "bucket of things" rather than linear. When we asked ourselves, "What should we do next?", this is the guide we revisit. We would jump around, move backwards, or even alter some steps for a specific project, but this process is served to be a guide and not law.

Why Now?

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No Precedent

There's was no defined process before we kicked-off this new initiative. Since there was a plan to hire more Product Designers in the future, it was important to start creating the foundation that a design team can build on.

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Team Scaling Quickly

Since the company was hiring more product leaders, there was an increased need for cross-team consistency, clear boundaries between roles, and to set expectations for how design will show up for each initiative.

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Education

There was a general lack of knowledge of the Product Design discipline on the team, leading to miscommunication of what what a Product Designer is meant to do.

Before the implementation of this process, there were known limitations:

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Lack of product design knowledge

As mentioned before, any design process is new this company, so it's important for the first phase of it to be simplified and easily digestible.

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Design sprints move quickly

The Process for Making a Design Process

Like any project, I proposed that we follow a simple process that can aid in a productive execution. I interviewed and collaborated with the Founders, Product Managers, a Marketing Manager, and a few individuals in Sales that have product knowledge.

The goal was to make this initiative feel loose and easy to customize to our needs. The process served as a guide rather than a hard-rule, therefore we often deviated and made decisions on next best steps based on the current needs of the team.

User Flows

Solution

Why Now?

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Internal Knowledge

Many internal stakeholders, including myself, could not tell one the current user flow. This lead to customers having varied experiences and the product team making decisions without knowledge of the full picture.

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Many Pain Points

The current process was too convoluted and confusing for customers. Additionally, internal customer service and sales struggle to communicate expectations to customers. Identifying where in the current process has a pain is easier when it is visualized.

Known Limitations

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We cannot identify every way the flow can split off

Each split has a process that is inside of likely one person's head. The process of identifying all the stakeholders who can be a resource and recording what they know can take time.

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Design sprints move quickly

Something very different happens for every member, therefore some personas probably do not have a specific flow they follow today. This creates the need for the team to prioritize which personas need to be outlined and addressed first.

Process

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Diagram what we know

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Connect with stakeholders to fill gaps

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Iterate using new knowledge

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Get feedback

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Clean up final flows

Future Considerations

DESIGN GUIDELINES

Design Guidelines: Component and Pattern System

At the time of this project, Uno did not have an end-user facing digital product, but there was an internal product that the enrollment team utilized daily; this product is used to determine health service eligibility for customers. Uno's future goal is to have and end-user facing product, which opened the discussion of whether they need to create a design component and pattern library. Although it was not currently top priority at the time, it is an ideal next step once they full rollout the design process outlined in this case study.