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I relaunched outdated design libraries, improved processes and rallied teams around shared fundamentals to improve the visual design of the Fanatics Sportsbook App and drive alignment across Fanatics enterprise verticals.
The problem
The design team on the Fanatics Sportsbook functioned with a startup mentality, designing to product parity first with little time to think about the larger experience. Previous attempts as systemization had seen little adoption due to the extremely fast turn around and lack of team transparency. The left hand wasn't talking to the right.
It was also unclear what processes were in place to maintain and ensure system quality and contribution. The accumulated debt meant design systems weren't understood or relied upon, leading to an experience that was disjointed, difficult to update from both an engineering and design perspective and didn't leverage insight from cross vertical platforms.
Shared fundamentals and applied semantics
Designers weren't speaking the same language as each other, as engineer or as the brand. I defined and documented shared fundamental values such as color scales, type ramps sizing and grids.
These fundamentals became the foundation for a semantic variable systems applied across verticals, increasing design and engineering cohesion and accelerating dark/light mode exploration.
Progressive documentation
Meeting designers and cross-functional partners where they are with documentation. From lightweight in the moment sticker sheets to full documentation sites.
Design systems culture
In an effort to expand design system thinking to the larger Fanatics user experience, I worked with design teams from multiple verticals to document and align similar design patterns. I conducted workshops to understand design needs between products as well as platforms from mobile to web.
What emerged was new ways of architecting Figma and design organization, increased craft and design systems know-how for component creation, and a more collaborative design practice across verticals.
Shared responsibility
Design systems from small to large are a shared responsibility. Teaching cross-functional team members about the value and utilization of design systems is essential to success. By sharing the responsibility of adopting and using design system components and thinking, I helped turn the larger design team into design system champions.
I created gamified experience to uptake design changes, communicate releases and problems as well as help with contribution.
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