UX Org Up-level
Video / Visuals / Education
After launching the Canvas Design System in the end of 2017, Design System adoption had still remained at around 1% of product heading into 2022. The organization had a lot of turnover within leadership roles, and the following project(s) was my attempt at keeping our relationship and support strong with Platform partners while increasing a more technical understand of Core development within the UX Org.
With hard skills and technical tooling in place our Designers were primed for a program that targeted an up-level on the current (and future) development landscape at Workday. Centering around transparency and collaboration, this initiative’s primary delivery method circled around communications and education across the Org.
Issues
A swap from Sketch to Figma had been well received internally but the older XpressO toolkits had been abandoned during this transition period.
Product Designers had been showing up to reviews with their PM’s and Developers with designs, flows, and assets that were not buildable.
An unclear understanding of how Core platform tooling works in relation to our Design System. How enhancements get funded or how to present contributions.
Which UI kit to use based on the development team I’m working with.
Our Product Design teams were consistently arriving to design reviews with UI that couldn’t be built as designed. Designers felt discouraged, PMs were impressed by the visuals, and developers were left trying to “get close” without a clear path to implementation. This disconnect was largely the result of a major tooling transition—our design org had shifted from Sketch to Figma just as the React-based Canvas Design System kit was being introduced, creating a gap between what was being designed and what could realistically be developed.
