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An overview of the roles and activities of a User Experience Designer, acting as Design Lead and Product Owner to the ADMIRALTY UKHO design system.
The ADMIRALTY Design System faced limited buy-in from the Tech Team, which was an issue, given that we only had 12 hours of development time per week to address over 20 accessibility issues. Additionally, the Tech team was using the Design System as a training tool for backend developers interested in UI development, so the team’s skill level varied as they were still learning. The backlog was lengthy list, with no clear ordering or prioritisation, and morale was low. There was also inconsistency across the organisation in how the system was being used due to limited buy-in, which meant we had little insight into whether teams were using the Design System correctly and little capacity to explore this.
My initial step as the new product owner was to understand what was and wasn’t working for the team. To do this, I arranged for a trusted Delivery Manager to facilitate a retrospective with the team. This helped us align and plan our next steps. From the retrospective we were able to create a list of actions and next steps.
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Project board and buy-in:
We prioritised project board and I successfully obtained increased technical support. An external agency provided a full-time UI developer, which allowed us to clear the ‘bug log’ ahead of schedule, enabling the product launch and satisfying stakeholders. Over 30 tickets were resolved within three months. The Agency UI Dev’s expertise also motivated the team to work more efficiently. We now have fulltime experienced dev on the team and have networked within the business to acquire support from a Test Engineer.
Stakeholder communication:
Through regular updates, show-and-tell sessions, and more detailed documentation, we’ve improved communication and provided clearer guidance for Design System users. With improved buy in from tech we now plan integrating release notes to enable smoother version updates. I am in the process of a 'service design' piece of work exploring how we as service can best approach this.
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The design system is gaining rigor and momentum, our team is growing both in size and skillset and we are working towards being seen as more of a supportive 'service' within the organisation. With a rebrand on the horizon, I look forward to enhancing design consistency and exploring new ways to ensure its correct implementation across teams, and new themes to better represent the different uses of the design system across the UKHO and ADMIRALTY. Additionally, Hotjar testing is allowing us to observe component usage, providing data for further refinement.
Since taking on the Design System, I've become more confident in understanding and speaking the developers' language, and I’ve learned to navigate challenges with limited resources through creative problem-solving and strategic thinking. I look forward to our continued progress and to building on the successes we've achieved so far.
To take a deeper dive into the Design System as it stands please take a look here.