Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Achieving Balanced Design Consistency
Gold
Wednesday, June 9, 2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Share the love for this talk
Achieving Balanced Design Consistency
Speakers: Prerna Makanawala
Link:

Summary

What do you do when Mergers and Acquisitions is your company’s growth strategy and all the products look different. Key design principle to solve this is UX Consistency. But how much consistency is needed? How can you engage all these different teams and align them on a common goal, especially in a decentralized product design environment? Lastly, having design alignment or a common design system is not enough, but ensuring that all the products implement the agreed design consistency across product. Learn how you can influence and scale to achieve balanced user experience across all products.

Key Insights

  • Mergers and acquisitions frequently introduce multiple design systems, complicating UX consistency.

  • Hybrid design organizational models balance centralized alignment with decentralized product flexibility.

  • Achieving around 30-40% design consistency with 60-70% product freedom avoids cookie-cutter experiences.

  • Forming cross-product design network groups encourages democratic, collaborative decision-making.

  • Visual elements like color palettes are effective starting points to unify diverse product designs.

  • Tracking implementation progress and involving engineering early is key to embedding consistent design.

  • A service leadership approach fosters collaboration better than command-and-control management.

  • Communicating regularly with product and engineering leadership ensures alignment beyond design teams.

  • Design consistency can reduce training needs, customer support, and speed up delivery through component reuse.

  • Balancing organizational culture differences and product needs is necessary during post-acquisition alignment.

Notable Quotes

"Design consistency is a key principle in design and in life; to achieve something, you have to be consistent and disciplined."

"When things behave the same way, users don't have to worry about what will happen – that's consistency that brings intuitive factor."

"In a hybrid design model, product teams get flexibility but a central entity keeps common elements aligned."

"Setting 100% consistency is setting yourself up for failure; about 30-40% consistency is a realistic goal."

"Create network groups where one designer from each product team collaborates to arrive at design decisions."

"A picture is worth a thousand words – compiling screenshots from all products can show stakeholders inconsistency clearly."

"Opt for collaboration instead of command and control; approach with a service leadership model."

"Changing mindset takes time, like turning a big ship in a different direction – it could take several hours."

"Tracking implementation commitments and following up regularly keeps projects on track in an agile environment."

"Human capital, design talent, is the most valuable asset – empower them to be part of the decision-making."

Ask the Rosenbot
Samuel Proulx
Designing beyond caricatures: Embracing real, diverse user needs
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
Bria Alexander
Day 2 Welcome
2024 • DesignOps 2024
Gold
Josh Clark
Sentient Design: New Design Patterns for New Experiences (3rd of 3 seminars)
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Chris Chapo
Data Science and Design: A Tale of Two Tribes
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Briana Thomas
The Quiet Force: Uncovering Hidden Leadership in High-Impact Design Teams
2024 • DesignOps 2024
Gold
Nicole Aleong
Future Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Wendy Johansson
An Education on Design Education for Orgs
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Dan Willis
Enterprise Storytelling Sessions
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Sofia Quintero
The Product Philosophy Behind EnjoyHQ
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
Coffee with Lou: Should You Write a (UX) Book? (Videoconference)
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Mandy Drew
What Role(s) Can Research Play in Responsible Design?
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Jack Moffett
UX Metrics That Matter and The Future of our Design at Scale Conference: A Community Conversation (Videoconference)
2022 • Enterprise Community
Sarah Fathallah
Lessening the Research Burden on Vulnerable Communities
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Shipra Kayan
How Tess Dixon Facilitates Team Engagement and Collaboration at Condé Nast Using Miro 
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Bria Alexander
Day 3 Welcome
2024 • DesignOps 2024
Gold
Jim Kalbach
Jazz Improvisation as a Model for Team Collaboration
2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Gold

More Videos

"Concept validation lets us objectively decide which features to build based on perceived usefulness and intent to use."

Standardizing Product Merits for Leaders, Designers, and Everyone

June 15, 2018

Simon Wardley

"Space has meaning in a map—if you move components around without reason, it’s no longer a map."

Simon Wardley

Maps and Topographical Intelligence (Videoconference)

January 31, 2019

Sandra Camacho

"We can’t solve systemic problems with surface-level solutions or checklists."

Sandra Camacho

Creating More Bias-Proof Designs

January 22, 2025

Darian Davis

"Appealing to stakeholders’ best interests helps build trust and rapport."

Darian Davis

Lessons from a Toxic Work Relationship

January 8, 2024

Fisayo Osilaja

"Stakeholder communication is crucial to professional strategy because without it, we run the risk of activity without impact."

Fisayo Osilaja

[Demo] The AI edge: From researcher to strategist

June 4, 2024

Uday Gajendar

"How do you create a sense of craft in an environment fraught with ambiguity, complexity, and anxiety?"

Uday Gajendar

The Wicked Craft of Enterprise UX

May 13, 2015

Davis Neable

"Trust is often underestimated but is critical when designers face public critique and feedback."

Davis Neable Guy Segal

How to Drive a Design Project When you Don’t Have a Design Team

June 10, 2021

Eniola Oluwole

"Launching a design system is not a sprint, there’s no end, it’s always a continuous process."

Eniola Oluwole

Lessons From the DesignOps Journey of the World's Largest Travel Site

October 24, 2019

Aurobinda Pradhan

"Design producers love their creative tools and want to keep using them without multiple manual reporting steps."

Aurobinda Pradhan Shashank Deshpande

Introduction to Collaborative DesignOps using Cubyts

September 9, 2022