Design System for Non-Designers
Reforge’s Executives-in-Residence (EIRs) had their own personal presentation designer that would help them build their decks. However, as the opportunity cost for designers was high, it was decided that the EIRs would make their own decks. I created a design systems complete with thoughtfully placed instruction on how to max the templates.
O V E R V I E W
Role
I was the sole designer in charge of figuring out the UX of the design guides and creating the material for it.
Deliverables
Build out a design guide that would empower EIRs to create their own decks while staying within Reforge’s brand, and ultimately, minimize visual designer involvement.
Repository of past case study decks
Business Outcomes & Impact
20+ EIRs
50 hours saved per cohort, with 2-3 cohorts a year
Designer involvement was much lower, with time and attention being diverted to more important projects.
In some cases where EIRs were still approaching designers to reformat their entire deck of raw content, designers were able to refer EIRs to the design system instead of doing everything from the ground-up.
D E S I G N P R I N C I P L E S
Just-in-time
Making instruction accessible. Putting instruction where they were likely to need it.
Reduce Cognitive Friction
Less text, more images, and videos where applicable since the science has shown that mechanical work is best shown visually.
Exhaustive
Designers could just drop links of every kind of how-to instead of taking time to demo.
P R O C E S S
Credit to Olena Panasovska for the icons
