Design system as a service
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School of Arts, Design and Architecture |
Master's thesis
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Date
2021
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Master's Programme in Collaborative and Industrial Design
Language
en
Pages
132 + 10
Series
Abstract
A design system provides ready-made designs, reusable code, and guidelines for how to utilise design methodologies to invent better digital products. Design systems are provided through a minimum viable form that is under constant update. Though the term has only a relatively short history of less than ten years, the concept of design system has been adopted by a significant number of organisations, including large enterprises, small and medium sized businesses, design agencies, governments and public sectors, and non-governmental organisations. The evolution of design systems in the industry has gradually aligned the tangible offerings of design systems, which always include style guide, guidelines, component libraries, and specifications. However, the services provided by the design system creators have not yet reached a standardised form due to the variation in organisational context. Additionally, since the concept of the design system is practical and rather recent, it has not yet been discussed in academia. Consequently, this thesis explores the evolution of design systems and the current services provided by design system teams on the market, to find the link between the selection of services by design system creators and the environment of organisations. To attain that, the research is based on a review of literature on the definition, components, and characteristics of design systems and an analysis of the current design system services on the market. Furthermore, a case study on the ABB CommonUX Design System was conducted to understand the users and creators of the particular design system and to investigate why specific services are provided and how the users’ opinions on the services. To achieve the objectives, semi-structured interviews were organised with the users and creators of the design system. The annual survey conducted by the CommonUX design system team furthermore served the quantitative data input. Based on the qualitative and quantitative data, an analysis was conducted utilising methods including the KJ method, user persona, and journey mapping. The empirical study and literature review imply the findings as follows. (1) There is no explicit standard of design system services in the industry. The selection of the services is influenced by the organisational environment. The ultimate intention of most design systems in providing the services is to create a community among the organisational design system users. (2) The organisational product portfolio complexity impacts the selection of design system services. When an organisation has a large number of products, the design system creators should pay more attention to learning the products and tracking the design system adoption. (3) The design maturity of an organisation also influences the strategy in providing design system services. The design system creators can help ensure the product design quality and spread design knowledge among product teams when they have less experience in design. For those design system creators in companies with higher design maturity, they tend to take more advantage in establishing contribution processes and employing communication forums. (4) Therefore, to evaluate the CommonUX Design System services, ABB’s organisational size and its design maturity level are taken into consideration. The current design system services are suitable for the context of the company and the product teams’ needs. Additionally, under the specific context of the case company, the bottom-up approach to improve the organisational design maturity leveraged by the design system is not sufficient, top-down methods should be initiated.Description
Supervisor
Roto, VirpiThesis advisor
Leinonen, AarneKeywords
design systems, design system services, service design, in-house design system creators, design maturity, organisational portfolio complexity,, design system adoption