adZU is a martech platform helping marketers create ads at scale.
adZU had recently created a Design System. One of the most important aspects of the Design System was missing, the Functional Documentation. As a result, developers were approaching the Product Design Team for guidance and therefore, limiting their time spent on solving larger problems within the product. Without a standardised approach, this would lead to a disjointed experience. By creating the documentation, the knowledge would be available across the business enabling the development teams to become self-sufficient.
Before starting the documentation, I felt it was important to understand the needs of the users by speaking with Product Managers and Developers. This influenced the structure of the documentation.
Key takeaways from the discussions were that the terminology used needed to be kept simple. As English was not the native language for the development teams, it was essential that the terminology used was not vague so that there was little room for the document to be misinterpreted. Another route of research was to analyse Design Systems such as Atlassian, Carbon and Material Design. I was able to take inspiration and understand the common trends amongst these well-structured systems.
With a structure to the documentation established, the next step was to prioritise the order in which components were documented in. As the Design System was already in use, I used the product roadmap and existing functionality as a guide.
I was able to continuously proof check and iterate on the the documentation by testing with Product Managers in order to form a tone of voice and a consistent language. By doing this we were able to validate that all the requirements were met.
- Documented over 20 components.
- Created a single source of truth which would lead to a consistent implementation.
- Enabled the Product Design Team to focus on larger problems within the Product and were seen as consultants of the Design System rather than a first port of call.
- QAs were able to validate against a list of guidelines ensuring that components were implemented consistently.
- Product Managers and Business Analysts were able to review the Design System in order to identify current and future requirements.
- Identified a number of components which needed enhancing to improve the functionality and visual aspect.
