Design System Process

Define the right thing to build. Build the thing right.

Goal

Create a strong foundation and prepare for work to come. Ensure everyone involved in the project has a common understanding of the desired outcomes and the approach the team plans to take.

After this phase, the feature should be ready for the upcoming PI prioritization.

Common Activities

• Exploratory research -user interviews, focus groups, field studies

• Stakeholder interviews - data insights, review of previous solutions, key business objectives

• Communication with the team to define and prioritize needs

Deliverables

• Documentation of initial requirements for feature definition.

• We need a good understanding of scope of work for the team to create stories

• Define where this fits into overall PI priorities

• Collection of examples to support the problem

• We may say no to prioritizing a request, and will provide reasoning

Goal

The discovery phase involves researching the problem space, framing the problem, and gathering evidence. This phase does not involve testing hypotheses or solutions.

To be effective, discovery should be broad and agnostic to the solution or technology.

• Understanding users: Through user research, the project team achieves an understanding of who the users are and how they are affected by a particular problem, as well as what they need, desire, and value from a solution (and why). It is important to include users with disabilities in the process.

• Understanding both the problem and the opportunities: Through investigation, the team understands how and why the problem occurs, and what effect it has both users, and the organization. We uncover opportunities for the organization, product, or service. Once the problem statement is established, designers will reach out to Inclusive User Research team to find out if research exists for this topic or if a backlog item can be added for future research.

• Shared vision: During discovery, the team works with stakeholders to understand business objectives and desired outcomes and align on what success looks like. The team should also have an idea of what success metrics will be tracked.

Common Activities

• Exploratory research - user interviews, focus groups, field studies

• Stakeholder interviews - data insights, review of previous solutions, key business objectives

• Competitive / heuristic / gap analysis

• Workshops - alignment, assumption mapping, affinity diagram mapping, service blueprint, problem framing

• Demo prep for discovery presentation

• Engineering spike for discovery: RFC, document, and user story creation

Deliverables

• Discovery documentation for design, content, engineering

• Technical analysis & implementation plan

• Summarizing findings that may include the following:

  • High level concepts

  • User journey maps

  • User needs statements

  • Finalized problem statement

  • Internal & Industry examples collected

Goal

The definition phase refines initial assumptions based on the learnings from discovery.

We challenge our initial assumptions to pressure test the problem and proposed solutions, and adapt as necessary. Multiple ideas are analyzed and synthesized.

After definition, work will be ready for further refinement from user testing, pressure testing and team collaboration.

Common Activities

• Preliminary design wireframes and coded proof of concepts are created.

• Identify content needs and patterns

• Storybook / test environment to validate design

• Pressure testing of ideas

• Initial draft requirements documentation

• Initial user testing to support direction, including users with disabilities

• Team review for awareness, alignment, and to uncover any challenges or necessary enhancements

Deliverables

• Draft Requirements documentation

• Draft designs

• Draft coded components

• Early user testing results

• Draft accessibility annotations

Deliverables

• Published design component / pattern -

• with token annotations

• Published coded component / pattern

• Published documentation

• Release communication distributed

• Published annotation preset

• Release demo