Oi Design System
The project had its first steps with the arising possibility of hiring a new CMS that would allow for speed in development but it would require a library of components. Soon there were talks about standardization and how to guarantee the migration of hundreds of pages to a new manager.
It took a while for the project to be called or understood as in fact a design system. After all the concept was still relatively new, specially at the time. In its early stages, it was once known as 'standardization', 'patterns', or even 'the one that's going to create all the templates'.
The first challenge was trying to define a strategy for the project's acceptance and adherence in the company since the business team, stakeholders and even some designer didn't fully comprehend the benefits of such initiative. So our first mission was raising awareness over the importance and the possible benefits, both qualitative and financial, of implementing a design system.
At the time we checked all the boxes for a design system: with teams focused on the maintenance of the pages and apps, answering to demands and designing components from zero there was not enough time for testing and improving the user experience.
Our process
We developed our own work model, contemplating how the design system team would integrate with the squads and 'spread the word'. In this model, the design system team would be responsible for hosting a forum every sprint in order to collect inputs from volunteer ambassadors from each tribe. In return, the design system team would give back patterns and guides to be tested by the squads. This was essential to promote adherence across the teams and allow everyone to build the system together.
The second moment of the project started with a big effort of counting styles, components and templates in order to highlight in numbers how big of an inconsistency we had, and to have an idea of how big an effort we were undertaking.
This moment also brought big definitions. Thanks to the help of our ambassadors, we were able to standardize the fundamentals of our digital identity and delivering back to them a comprehensive guide.
The third and final moment planned for this project - which is its current phase - accounts for an ongoing operation of standardizing the components, giving them back to the squads to be tested, implemented and, according to the results, added to the library which is in constant development and expansion.
Below, the MVP for our design system webpage. It integrates the three verticals of Digital: design, content and development, providing access to the fundamentals as wells as the components and resources.
