UX Foundations

In my career, I focus on horizontal teams that translate their expertise into assets that scale across the entire organization. At a minimum, this means Accessibility and Design Systems. Lately, I have also been finding that businesses need a team to ensure Brand Integrity by updating older product areas, supporting teams in adopting system components, developing recipes for shared experiences, and/or creating utilities. I’ve enjoyed exploring how this need can be met with a sibling team that works closely with the systems team(s).

Scaling Expertise

Since horizontal teams are composed of specialists, we realize the greatest impact by working at scale.

We do this through:

enablement

Bolstering user support through system documentation, workshops, training videos, Office Hours, and a support Slack channel.

buffet service

By creating an array of dishes that meet the needs of all our guests, we allow them to serve themselves if, and when, they are ready to eat. In this way, system teams become enablers rather than gatekeepers or roadblocks.

discovery

Product teams are the experts in the user they support. If we meet their needs, we will be, in turn, meeting the needs of our end users. To do this best, our discovery focuses on the designers and engineers that use the system. Connecting with them early, and often, allows us to create a system that they want to adopt.

Ensuring Accessibility through Systems

Early in my career, I focused on bringing non profit organizations online for the first time. This meant that I discovered early the importance of creating experiences that work on assistive technology as well as in the browser. I found that using modular, reusable, chunks of code was the best way to ensure that accessibility requirements would be met with any new content added by someone else. Ultimately, this is what led to my interest in design systems.

While system components establish an accessible base to the product, companies with large complex products may require more support by having specialists on the team, to provide office hours, contribute UX utilities and patterns, test new features, and provide training materials.