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Yesenia Perez-Cruz
An Event Apart—Seattle April 2018
Scenario-Driven
Design Systems
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–Karri Saarinen, Building a Visual Language
A unified design system is essential to building better
and faster; better because a cohesive experience is
more easily understood by our users, and faster
because it gives us a common language to work with.
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How do you define
a design system?
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A collection of reusable
components assembled to
build any number of
applications?
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A system is an interconnected set of
elements coherently organized in a
way that achieves something.
–Donella Meadows, Thinking in Systems
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–Donella Meadows, Thinking in Systems
A system is an interconnected set of
elements coherently organized in a
way that achieves something.
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Elements
Interconnections
Purpose
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A good design system feels:
Cohesive
Unified
Connected
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A bad design system feels:
Disjointed
Confusing
Difficult to use
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Elements
Interconnections
Purpose
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Start your design system
with user-scenarios.
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8 brands
350+ websites
1 design system
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Why?
• Easier to design, build,
launch, maintain, and evolve
the sites on our platform.
• Faster to launch new brands
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Tell better
stories, faster
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Editorial Missions
Content Types
Audience Needs
Typography & Branding
Different
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Unify eight brand sites into
one design and code system.
1
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Provide enough flexibility to
allow brands to still feel distinct.
2
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Problems
to solve
• What patterns/components do we
need to build?
• How can these components be
combined to create distinct
experiences?
• How can we create a unique look
& feel for 300+ sites using one
visual design system?
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Early
assumptions
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Smaller, modular components
come together to define a page.
1
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Address inconsistencies in design:
layout, color, typography, &
treatments of similar information
2
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Hypothesis:
A set of flexible, brand-agnostic
modules with a theming system
will give us the most range.
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It’s legos, right?
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Too focused on
LAYOUTS
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4-up
2-up
1-up
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Sites felt too similar
Did not reflect critical
differences in content,
tone, and audience
1.
2.
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Homes & Neighborhoods
Maps, Guides
Tech & Business
News, Podcasts
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Modules didn’t have a
clear purpose.
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–Donella Meadows, Thinking in Systems
A system is an interconnected set of
elements coherently organized in a
way that achieves something.
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Elements
Interconnections
Purpose
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New Hypothesis:
In order to create a flexible
system, we needed to start by
being specific.
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What we
learned
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You can’t start
with individual
components
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Successful design
patterns don’t exist in
a vacuum.
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–Alla Kholmatova, The Language of Modular Design
We should start with
language, not interfaces.
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Successful design
systems start with
content and people.
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Audience Editorial Content Revenue
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What’s the audience goal?
Is there a shared audience goal across all of our
brands or are there differences?
What’s the editorial workflow?
What range of content should this support?
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Start with fast, unified platform
Be scenario-driven when creating
variations
Find key moments for visual brand
expression that serve our audience
1.
2.
3.
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Fast, Unified
Platform
• Our platform should load quickly,
be accessible, and work well
across devices
• We should have a unified core
user experience
• All components that we build
should be available to all brands
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Scenario-Driven
Variations
• Scenarios, not layout, should
drive variation
• All patterns should solve a
specific problem
• We’re not creating a one-size-
fits-all solution
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No hypothetical
situations
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Identifying
Scenarios
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“UI Inventory”
Brad Frost, http://bradfrost.com/blog/post/interface-inventory/
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“Purpose-Directed Inventory”
Alla Kholmatova, https://www.smashingmagazine.com/design-systems-book/
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–Alla Kholmatova, Design Systems
Keeping this map in my mind helped
me think in families of patterns joined
by a shared purpose, rather than
individual pages.
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Identify core workflows and the patterns
that need to support these workflows.
Understand the role each pattern plays in
a user’s journey.
Define how the patterns work together
to create a cohesive experience.
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Know your
use case.
–Salesforce, Lightning Design System
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Workspace
Facilitates user
collaboration on records
Board
For items that are
advancing through a linear
workflow
Reference
For when users are
primarily jumping to related
records
Salesforce, https://www.lightningdesignsystem.com/guidelines/layout/
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via: Shopify, https://polaris.shopify.com
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“Put Merchants First”
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“Callout cards are used to encourage merchants
to take an action related to a new feature
or opportunity”
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https:/
/playbook.cio.gov/designstandards/
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Scenario-driven design
in practice
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Features
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Turn 18 distinct templates
with 81 code snippets into
1 flexible design system
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Identifying Core
Workflows
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Audience goals consistent
across brands, but content
differed.
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Audience Goals
LEDE IMAGE
TEXT BOX
RECIRCULATION
MODULE
• Consume content
• Find new content
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Scenario-driven
variations
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LEDE IMAGE VARIATIONS
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HED BELOW
Highlights
photography
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HED ABOVE
Prioritizes text
over photography
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HED OVERLAY
Photo as background,
for lower quality images
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HED BELOW
SHORT IMAGE
Short image, valuable
for illustration or
widescreen images
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SIDE-BY-SIDE
Specifically for
vertical images
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Only add a layout if there’s
a content need.
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Snippets
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Content
Audit
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Content
Audit
• Does it add value?
• Is it available to more than
3 brands?
• Is it a must-have for 1
brand?
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Snippet
Examples
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Brand Expression
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Reviews
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The Scorecard
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Initial design
1 SCORECARD component
with 3 sections: meta info,
open text field, CTAs
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Where to eat
What to order
What game to buy What product to buy
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Address
Cost
Rating out of 4 stars
Book a Table
Platform(s)
Publisher
Score out of 10 points
Release Date
Product Image
Pro/Con List
Score out of 10 points
Buy Now Buttons
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VENUE CARD GAME CARD PRODUCT CARD
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VENUE CARD
Highlights content that helps you
find where to eat
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GAME CARD
Highlights content specific to
games
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PRODUCT CARD
Highlights content that is specific to
products with Buy Now buttons
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ONE SCORECARD
First unified version:
Content has the same hierarchy
across the board
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VENUE
GAME
PRODUCT
After:
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Scorecard
Variants
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Homepages
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Identifying Core
Workflows
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• What’s the value of the
homepage today?
• Who’s our homepage
audience?
• What are they looking for?
• How are our current
homepages performing?
Research
Phase
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Talk to your audience
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The audience from our user survey was more likely to use a phone, more
likely to follow links from social media.
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• What’s new?
• What’s important?
• What’s helpful?
The homepage
should clearly
answer these 3
questions:
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3 Main Areas of Purpose
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STORYFEED COVERS UTILITY
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• Higher content density so
users can see more content
at a glance
• Reverse chronological order
• Priority is quick
consumption of content to
serve the engaged homepage
audience of repeat visitors
STORY FEED
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ENTRY BOX
Standard entry box
Map
Review
Storystream Group
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Scenario-driven
variations
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4-up
2-up
1-up
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NEWSPAPER
A text-heavy layout for busy news reporting
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EVERGREEN
A flexible layout that promotes both recent and evergreen content
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MORNING RECAP A hero for the morning after a busy night of sporting events
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“In the process of naming an
element, you work out the function
as a group and reach an agreement.”
Alla Kholmatova, The Language of Modular Design
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Brand Expression
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PROMO BAR
Featured hero area to
highlight additional stories/
content underneath main
stories section
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MASTHEAD
Date, logo, tagline, image
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Scalable visual design
system
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Key Moments for
Brand Expression
• We must create a platform where
brands can feel distinct
• We need to express strong
editorial voice and identity
• Brand expression is more than
just colors and logo
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Foundational
elements
Room for
customization
+
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Foundational
elements
• Type scale
• Color system
• Spacing variables
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Type Scale
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Color System
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Color System
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Color System
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COLOR-HERO-GRADIENT
COLOR-NAV-BG
COLOR-LINK
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Good Variation Bad Variation
vs
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Good
Variation
• If there’s a specific problem that
we need a new pattern to solve
• Determined by user scenarios
and content needs
• Strengthens brand voice in a
way that serves our audience
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Bad
Variation
• Visual variation on components
that serve the same function
across brands,
• Don’t do much to strengthen
brand voice
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Before:
Custom one-off
solutions
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Now:
Telling better
stories, faster
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What’s next?
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Now that we’re on a unified
platform, we can create even more
tailored experiences at scale.
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Successful design
patterns don’t exist in
a vacuum.
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Successful design
systems solve
specific problems.
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Successful design
systems start with
content and people.
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Thank
you! @yeseniaa
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• The Language of Modular
Design — Alla Kholmatova
• Design Systems — Alla
Kholmatova
• A Pattern Language —
Christopher Alexander
• Thinking in Systems —
Donella Meadows
References