Configurable Core
Role: Design Manager, Project Manager
Timeframe: 3 months
Overview
There was unnecessary UI variation between products, even when using the design system. This resulted in a disjointed and confusing experience for our users and unnecessary rework for products teams building the same things in parallel. I partnered with UX Directors in two business units to successfully pitch the idea of "Configurable Core" and received support to run it as a pilot.
The Challenge
The executive sponsors agreed on the problem statement but had doubts if we could get multiple product teams to agree on a single set of configurable patterns that would meet all their business needs. Working with multiple product managers and designers brought lots of differing opinions to the table.
The Plan
We picked one pattern (Candidate Card) as a pilot to see if we could make this work. This pattern was used across 6 products. We conducted an audit to gather all the variations in the products. We held a workshop including designers and product folks from all the products to learn why each variation was used, then we collaborative iterated on a configurable design that met all the business needs.
The Results
We were able to built a set of configurable components that met all the business needs, provided variation where it was needed, and consistency where it was not. All 6 product teams got on board to implement the new configurable solution. We then took this success story back to the executive sponsors and got buy in to expand the program to the multiple other shared patterns that we discovered.