Building a design system
Built for desktop. Focused on data
Utilising Google Material Designs’ principles and standards as a baseline, Halo is optimised for our client’s enterprise web applications that handle data analysis at big data scale. Working to support the design community and the engineering teams responsible for the hundreds of web applications they support.
Sketch libraries make for rapid design of consistent experiences and the coded components follow industry best practices and include usability and accessibility enhancements for the ultimate developer experience.
The road to success
Dave oversaw the creation and implementation of the Halo Design System from day zero. Identifying there was a better, more efficient way to design and develop the applications he began the long process of applying for seed funding, top-level backing, adapting ways of working, design standardisation and finding alliances within the front-end development community.
Design System responsibilities
Funding and Project ownership
Design critique and ways of working improvements
Empowering a design community to improve the quality of its design
Alignment of Design and Development communities
Alpha, Beta, Live deployment model
Establishment of Metrics and efficiency models
Move from internal seed funding to client project funding
How to get a sceptical community to adopt?
Halo went into live operation with development by 13+ engineering teams. Success is delivered through the consistent experiences it provides to users and the thousands of hours of engineering savings obtained through the reuse of its common components.
Halo was delivering value to the internal development teams but ultimate success was measured by ‘ownership’ of Halo transferring to the client community it serves. This transfer of ownership was a strategic milestone that served to better serve and support the scale of need via a dedicated product team.
In a first for BAE, Halo met its stated goal by gifting all of the IP for Halo to the client. This allowed the formation of an ongoing design and development team funded by the client and deployment as a free-to-use, open-source Design System.
The evolution of this work lives on in a publicly available design system. Contact Dave for more details.