In this talk we’ll uncover our journey in creating a Design System for Skyscanner and share our learnings on how we sold it to the business by proving its worth. We’ll talk through some of the design and tech considerations we’ve made and share the tools and techniques which have helped us along the way.
16. Getting teams to try
something new alongside
their existing schedules
was hard. Really hard.
Hard sell
17. Naturally, our team at the
time became the first
adopter.
A few beers later, we managed to convince a couple
of other teams to give it ago.
Beer pays
18. Gaining traction and seeing
things being used in
multiple projects showed
signs that this was useful.
It was time to make a business case.
Rule of 3
19. We presented to C-level on
all the benefits that a
design system could bring
and ran demos of our POC.
C-level
buy-in
20. It had two be an equal
partnership between
design and engineering.
Two-sided
21. All the great benefits aside
(which everyone nodded
along to), we finally got
people to listen when we
talked about money.
Both money wasted by reinventing the wheel - think
design and engineering salaries, but also the
potential revenue we could gain by speeding up
delivery for teams by getting to market quicker.
Money talks
26. We were given 6 months to
get the project off the
ground and prove its worth.
We’re now nearly a year in and going from strength
to strength with 5 full-time team members.
BTW We’re hiring: bit.ly/2pa2Ww1
1 year in…
28. • Build on atomic design principles
to instil component thinking
• Offer Sketch, React and Sass
solutions
• Bake accessibility in from the start
• Support RTL languages
• Allow custom theming
Approach
29. Everything in Backpack can and
should be challenged.
We are not the consistency police.
It belongs to design and
engineering. We simply maintain it.
Not an edict