Design narrative system
Designer, working with a prototyper
2016 - 2017
Storytelling the value of design. Towards the end of my work for the Visa Digital Commerce App, some designers and I started seeding the foundations of what eventually became the Visa Design System. While the system defined the basic UI components, I noticed we could go further with experience sets to storytell the value of designed user experiences to the business. Not only did this prove valuable to non-designers for incubation and client demo purposes, it also increased our team efficiency when we faced time and resource constraints.
I worked with other visual, interaction, and motion designers to create Visa’s first product design system
OPPORTUNITY
Extending the Visa Design System
Thinking beyond the UI, I decided to use the design system to make tools for our sales and innovation teams. Working with Visa’s capabilities and design components, I created experience sets that tell stories of three different personas using Visa products and services in meaningful ways. I tried to provide variances in the storyline to enable more flexible customization for different clients, all the while focusing on the strengths of Visa’s capabilities. I also worked with other designers and prototypers to design a mobile reference app to demonstrate these experience sets.
OUTCOME
Modular storytelling
I began sharing the design narrative system and tools for non-designers to DIY their own narratives by using these modular experience sets. Overtime we iterated the system based on feedback from conferences, client meetings, presentation pitches, hack-a-thon’s, innovation workshops, and user research. The system was not completely self-service, and while the final storyboard and reference app execution was still handled designers, it streamlined our processes significantly. We didn't have to start from scratch, and we directed more time towards deeper problem-solving and fine-tuning the narrative at hand.
REFLECTION
Empowering people to design stories
While systems are useful, they can never address the nuances of every problem. The design narrative system expedited execution and gave us the time to consider specific needs, but it would not replace applying (and encouraging!) creativity in our process. I particularly enjoyed the experience of empowering non-designers to make their own stories, and in the process advocating a human-centered mindset and articulating the business value of design. This project led me to continue extending the system with our developers, where we streamlined UI customization sets for iOS/Android prototypes using React Native.