Challenge
Customers don’t experience the brand consistently on Target.com, leading to low NPS and lack of confidence in purchase. Engineers and designers spend too much time building the same component, which leads to wasted time and inconsistencies.
Define
2 users to consider here. The first is the target.com customer who we found through user testing that they did not have seamless experiences on our website because of inconsistencies in design. The other group of “users” are the engineers and designers. They did not have the tools they needed to work efficiently and create consist experiences on t.com.
Ideate
I inherited this amazing team comprised of UX Designers, Engineers and Accessibility Consultants who had already done the research and been assigned to test a design system product. In researching other companies at our same maturity stage, it was their recommendation to move forward with the concept.
We had no additional resources, so we behaved like a start-up within the larger organization, focusing on releases that would be most useful in gaining adoption. The team set 30-60-90 day goals and as they released features, they would communicate to the larger team via newsletter and created a feedback loop with engineers who wanted to be early adopters.
To fill in the engineering resources we needed, we collaborated with our technology internship program and developed a role for interns to learn the product and help us with building the system.
As the leader of this team, my role was to remove roadblocks, develop the business case for adoption, build the engineering pipeline and ensure this team and their work had visibility in the appropriate spaces. I was also responsible for lobbying leadership for investment in the team and product so we could scale and realize financial impact
Prototype & Test
The design system was a continuous prototype and always testing for improvement. Their biggest hurdle was prioritizing what to engineer that would drive the most adoption. The team would release a feature, test with users (engineers and designers) and prioritized the backlog.
Results
1. Established robust design and documentation processes
2. Built nicollet.target.com
3. Built an exciting intern training program for junior engineers
4. Launched documentation site, tokens site and Lingo
5. Created and manage a community channel in Slack
6. Built a financial case and secured investment to scale the design system