Challenge and task
As a newly formed design team, our priority was to develop a design system that could evolve alongside our expanding product suite. One of my initial responsibilities at UiPath involved supporting our two principal designers at the time with the design of controls. Subsequently, I organized these controls into functional groups and constructed them as components in our design software (we has just switched from Sketch to Figma and everyone was learning the ropes).
Building handy tools for designers
When building the design system components in Figma, I had the idea to also include helpful tools, such as these spacers, that our team could use to more quickly verify spacing rhythms and padding adhered to our design system specifications (note: this was before Figma had introduced variables). The effort, though modest, garnered considerable positive feedback from the whole team!
Another fun thing I did was to post 'Figma Tips o'the Day' on our company's #design Slack channel once the team officially switched over to Figma. It was new to everyone and was a fun personal challenge for me to find all of the shortcuts and secret timesavers in the product so I could share them with the rest of the team. The best way for to learn anything is to teach it to others, right?
Ensuring a good user experience for our designers
An important part of my job was to not only build the components in Figma, but to provide documentation for how each control was to be used in designs as well as HOW TO USE the components properly in Figma. This task presented a significant challenge for me, as modifying a design file crafted by another individual can be quite cumbersome!
Documentation of our foundation
As our design system evolved and our team expanded, establishing a robust foundation for building designs became crucial. I developed comprehensive documentation covering layout grids, typography, spacing, and color palettes, which was then published on a documentation site connected to our Figma libraries.
Objective and Key Results
Over four years, our design system expanded and successfully supported more than a dozen products across desktop and mobile platforms. Currently, it serves dozens of designers across multiple product teams. The extensive documentation accompanying the system empowers designers in several time zones to access the necessary resources and resolve any obstacles independently.
It's important to acknowledge that this achievement was not solely my effort; I had the privilege of collaborating with some of the most talented teammates to nurture and develop this design system into what it has become today!