Scaling Design System: Capstone Project
The Brief
You’re the Head of Digital for the newly launched IPTS: the Interplanetary Travel Syndicate, a bustling transportation network that shuttles people from world to world within our galaxy.
Your leadership has decided to launch with 3 unique offerings:
ipts.org, an informational website where you can find the latest news and happenings with the IPTS
IPTS Travel, a website where you can browse and book travel to and from multiple destinations within our galaxy. Like Expedia for space.
IPTS Rail, a real-time updated web app where you can view lines, routes, and times for all the different commuter lines.
The Plan
Business leaders and key stakeholders have bought into the idea of revamping the online presence or IPTS created during the infancy of the company. The mission is to attract investors and showcase IPTS as a thought leader in the galactic transportation and logistics industry. A new corporate site is vital.
Moving people and things safely and efficiently is a top priority for the business. When shuttles are late, the company loses money. As the business looks to expand its routes, attracting riders, travelers, and businesses via trustworthy and easy-to-use applications is paramount to the success of the company.
Building a broad range of products quickly requires a plan. We set forth to create a design system to speed up design and development. A team of two, one designer and one engineer, set out to create a handful of reusable design assets and coded components to allow for rapid prototyping. Because of the foundations set by the engineer, the approved designs were easily adapted to code.
As the designer iterated through design with business leaders, marketing, and other key stakeholder, the engineer worked tirelessly to ensure all the foundation components met the highest accessibility standards. The rider, operators, employees, and business partners who rely on IPTS will all benefit from this work.
Competitive Analysis
Moving people and products at scale is nothing new. IPTS is not the first but it is the best. Countless hours of research were spent looking into current and historical successes and failures of other companies. Due in large part that IPTS being a design lead company, no corners were cut on making the backend infrastructure performant, and the UI intuitive all to benefit the end user.
Style Guide
Multiple iterations were created through design workshops. These workshops included marketing, sales, customers, engineers, pilots, and designers.
Wireframes
Once the style guide was approved there were workshops to discuss information architecture, taxonomy, and layouts.
Component Development
Together, the designer and developer had a strong understanding of the foundational needs of the components they were going to create. While the designer worked with stakeholders on design approvals, the engineer set out to create adaptable and accessible components.
High-fidelity Designs
Once the components were finalized, high-fidelity mockups were created to showcase all the previous decisions. This gave an opportunity for any last minute changes.
Documentation
To improve consistency and reduce redundancy, documentation was created using Supernova. Decisions were cataloged to act as a reminder for future conversation as the team and products grow and evolve.
Rebrand
Leadership at the IPTS— hired the prestigious branding firm MegaBrand to do a rebrand of the entire organization.
MegaBrand discovered through focus groups that the IPTS name and logo felt very ominous, like it was cold, faceless corporation that was always watching. (“The eyeball-shaped logo doesn’t help,” said one candid participant.) In addition, the IPTS wants to appeal to a younger demographic.
After weeks of research and exploration, they’ve settled on the new name “Shuddle,” which feels more like a cool, new startup.
Due to the sound decision made previously, this was a welcomed change and excited the team. The new branding was implemented in less than a day and changed the future of IPTS.
Key Takeaways
Time, planning, and preparation are important to having success in an exercise like this. The team (1) working on this project found it difficult to focus on just this with the myriad of work and life expectations in their lives. The project was completed but with lower expectations than is typically expected. Most of everything that was taught throughout the course was used during this project.