Enhancing Productivity and Creativity: How to 'Work Smarter, Not Harder'? on a Multi-Theme Design System

Enhancing Productivity and Creativity: How to 'Work Smarter, Not Harder' on a Multi-Theme Design System

As a Product Designer and Storyteller, my passion is creating designs that look good and feel good to use. I believe that every design should have a soul and a story to tell - a sense of personality and character that connects with the user and makes them feel a part of the product.

The Journey of Creating a Multi-Theme Design System

Recently, I had the opportunity to work on a multi-theme design system for a global enterprise client. One of my main objectives was to focus on universal components without creating a whole new set of components for each theme while still maintaining a sense of uniqueness. By using a high percentage of universal components, the design system could be easily implemented and scaled, saving time and resources for both designers and developers. This aligns with my philosophy of 'working smart, not hard.'

To overcome this challenge, we experimented with different techniques to give the universal components a unique flair without creating a whole new set of components for each theme. For example, we used a black and white font color with an opacity effect and added glassmorphism overlays to give the components a modern and futuristic look.

Thanks to these techniques, most of the components blended seamlessly into any color scheme. This helped to save time and resources while still providing a cohesive, intuitive experience for users.

Key Takeaways

Throughout this project, I learned a few key things:

  1. Collaboration is essential. Building a design system requires input and buy-in from multiple teams and stakeholders. It's crucial to involve them early and often in the process to ensure that the system meets the needs of all users.
  2. Planning is crucial. Before diving into the design process, it's important to take the time to plan and define the scope, goals, and objectives of the design system. This helps to ensure that the system is scalable, flexible, and easy to maintain.
  3. Limiting flexibility enhances creativity. Constraints within a design system can lead to more user-friendly products. By limiting flexibility and establishing clear guidelines for how components should be used, we can ensure that the user experience is not compromised. This can be especially beneficial for developers, who can focus on making the product delightful rather than worrying about foundational things like layout and styling.
  4. Consistency is key. One of the main benefits of a design system is that it helps to create a consistent user experience across different products and platforms. To achieve this, it's essential to define clear guidelines and standards for typography, color, spacing, and other design elements.
  5. Testing is essential. As part of the testing process for our design system, I compiled a list of the existing tools and platforms used within the enterprise. I then used the design system components across these tools to see how they functioned in those specific use cases.

Conclusion

Creating a systematic, scalable multi-theme design system is challenging but rewarding. It required careful planning, collaboration, and testing, but the end result was a cohesive, intuitive experience for users. I'm inspired to see how it will continue to evolve and be used by the teams in the future.

Beatriz Rocha, P.A., MS

Broker Associate | Real Estate Advisor | GRI-Certified | Luxury Institute Member

1 年

Very inspiring

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