Design Ops
-
Union Pacific
Union Pacific
-
Category
Design Ops , User Experience
-
Tools
Axure , Figma , Interviews
Why Design OPS?
Union Pacific Railroad had a UX team working with inconsistencies and their design deliverables took a long time. Design OPS allows the team be better aligned with business operations, better visualize the professional development needs of designers as a discipline of their own, and better integration into the product workflows of other teams such as development or marketing.
Collaborative research and UX design methodologies were, also implemented; and a new tool for the team, to change the infrastructure and mentality for work better together.
The problem
The team had a old PDF format document, shared and updated for the team, so many times, it was hard to know if a new component was created or if you (as a UX designer) had the latest version of this document.
Another important issue was than the team was not communicating, on time, the updates that were made, giving room for assumptions and production on design process mistakes.
.
Team Assignments
- UP Elements Components & Specifications
- Researching Specific Topics: Zebra devices, Digital Eye Strain, etc.
- Observers and note taking
- Figma, Axure and Sketch Library Management
- Designing Templates • Case Studies • PowerPoint Presentations
- Making working Prototypes
- Quick changes to mockups
How will we organize this library?
Based on Material Design we redefine the needs for put into work all the good practices for working with a library made in Figma. However, it was not put together like "atoms, molecules, organisms" in the Figma document, it was respected that they had a PDF document, based on Material design categories and already made for the development team.
Team Work Process
- Anyone can assign a new ticket to NST
- - Via JIRA ticket creation
- - Via direct email
- Anyone can view NST's current workload
- -Via go/NSTjira
- Near Shore Team (NST) posts their capacity in #Scrum
- Union Pacific manages NST priorities
Figma library
The grid system provides consistency in layout across various screens and devices. This was documented with point breaks in sizes, for help to maintaining a harmonious arrangement of elements and content.
Atoms and moleculesThe atom is the smallest unit of particles that can exist. A molecule in Atomic Design is the union of different atoms to form a more complex UI element.
DesignOps Handbook and education
Operations. Elements that facilitate high-quality instances of all the activities required to achieve our goals with minimal friction. It includes the tools and infrastructure required to complete these activities.
Craft. How we create the plans for the forms and shapes we imagine will solve problems and create positive change.
Methods. Usually encapsulate our craft. Any given method can use different crafts to target the same success.
- Culture. How we manage our particular operations is our culture. These are the values, principles, and mission that drive an organization.
This design system it’s considered as a living organism. We encourage to the whole designers to approach to the Design OPS team for creation and / or addition of new componentes.
We also give the initial 101 to the team for they to get familiar with Figma app, for start, and then how to link a library with they new documents, how to work with this different components and the variables.
Video tutorials
For ending this new integration of the UP Figma library, I create video tutorials as a support for the UX Team. The idea was the UX designers had at first hand whenever they may need.
For the creation of these, I use AI, for narrative voices and edit the whole thing in Adobe Premiere.
