Success metrics
As Steve Jobs famously said, "Real artists ship" from this
perspective, the design and front-end teams were enabled to
produce what they needed using the components and the
documentation provided.
The admin UI redesign was a success across the organization and
end-users; the library is ready to be extended to other
Kiteworks user interfaces.
Learnings
Creating a library of components and a design system, for that
matter, implies thinking in terms of simplicity, extensibility,
usability, relationship with other elements, different states,
etc.
The system is a never-ending project because the gaps in
production and communication can constantly be improved.
Future iterations
The combination of Adobe XD for design and Zeplin for a handout
to a developer was not very efficient due to the need to
maintain two sources of truth. By the time we finished this
project, Figma was starting to become the standard for UI
design, so the team looked into the migration hoping to have
only one source of truth for UI design and components and
handing it over to developers.
I'm investing in learning Figma, especially now that the latest
version in May 2022 includes powerful features to significantly
reduce the number of versions of components like buttons, toats,
etc. and support for responsive design. Figjam is also an
excellent tool for brainstorming and documenting workflows.