Welcome back to what is now becoming a saga. The initial design system I had made needed to be tweaked a little bit. A lot of team members were using text styles or weren’t using them correctly, the same with the colours. I cannot stress enough that this is a fault on my part, not theirs. In the pursuit of making systems efficient for myself, I hadn’t considered that people work in vastly different ways. No duh. I should have either explained how to use my processes better or created a more versatile, easy-to-use system. The pursuit of a nice design system came from my want to be able to help team members design better. The designers could not, so I have failed. A very good learning lesson that I will try to work on.
At this time, there were too many iterations and designs that had the old text, and I was worried about the downsides of deleting the system fully, so I avoided that (probably not the best call). I created a new style sheet for the Joy font we had been given. Renamed a couple of things and regrouped text styles in the library panel. This, I thought, would fix the problem. It did not.
The problem persisted, and team members were still using the old text styles or not using them at all. It became clear that my approach was not working, and I needed to find a better solution.
After some reflection, I realized that the issue wasn’t necessarily with the design system itself but rather with the way it was being implemented and communicated. I should have taken the time to properly onboard the team members and ensure everyone understood how to use the system effectively.
Moving forward, I learned the importance of clear communication and proper training when introducing new processes or tools to a team. A design system, no matter how well-crafted, is only as effective as the team’s ability to use it correctly.
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