Design framework
Case study
02 of 06
+ Key tags
- Design process
- Design ops
- Scalable design
+ Resources
- Resources available on request
+ Overview
Barclays design team needed a way to structure its process and resources, in a way that would allow the team to be creative and flexible within boundaries of best practice and the corporate brand.
+ Background
I was tasked with documenting the existing design process as it stood, with a view to enhance and meet new team needs and more modern approaches. It needed to function in a way that not only the design team could use it, but for use as a communication tool for senior stakeholder discussions when approaching new projects. A key part of this was to make sure this did not end up a 'tick in the box' type approach which had previously tried and failed.
+ Process
The first thing I did was to engage all employees who were in some way involved or affected by the design process, from scrum masters to product owners, BA's to UI designers I set up meetings to get there perspective on the current process and understanding. From the meetings I discovered numerous attempts and workshop outputs that I analysed and made observations of trends and priorities.
One of the things that became clear straight away was that each project team ran completely different from one another. This meant that when the teams approach projects they have to do so in a way where they may be constrained by independent factors on the project, e.g. budget, time, lack of resource or skill within their team.
Another key finding was that trying to use existing design processes (e.g. double diamond) was difficult due to the nature or pace of the rest of the business. For some projects this was more feasible than others, but on the whole a standard approach didn't work across all projects.
+ The end
With all of this in mind I successfully proposed more of a framework approach, the idea being the design team could pick and choose the elements they need for each part of a linear but not rigid design process. This meant there was no tick box solution, but a framework that starts simple (allowing better communication for senior stakeholders) and can be drilled down to the finer detail. By adding in things like resourcing tools, templates and guidance also allows for a more scaleable design ops style document.
