Kristofer PasanenThe idea behind any design system is to deliver a set of components and patterns based on the foundation of the brand essence to make the daily work of design and development teams smoother. In addition to being a practical tool, a well-thought-out design system supports the overall business in many ways. By improving the customer experience and strengthening the brand’s credibility, it significantly helps the company achieve its business objectives over the short and long term.
Especially with companies like Elisa, a customer typically has several touchpoints. There are different OmaElisa platforms for corporate and consumer customers to manage their subscriptions, there is an online store, and so on. If every touchpoint had its own operating principles, the cognitive burden on users – and their frustration – would very quickly become intolerable.
A good design system is key to a more coherent user experience. This builds credibility, which has a direct relationship with customer loyalty and retention – and therefore, with business success in general. It acts like glue between design, technology and business, acting as what we at Elisa call a common capability, being utilised across the organisation.
If you don’t have an adequate design system in place and you give the same task to seven teams, you will most likely get seven different solutions. Even though most of the solutions will likely be suitable for the initial problem, solving the same thing in seven different ways easily creates problems of its own.
A good design system draws clear and helpful guidelines without making designers and developers feel that their creativity is being restricted too much. Just like a big box of Lego, it includes different kinds of pieces and even some assembly instructions. However, what the entire Lego city will eventually look like is completely left for the designers and developers to decide.
Even better, a design system enables designers and developers to pay more attention to the most interesting parts of the work. They don’t need to spend time pondering how the button should work, as it has already been defined for all necessary states. And, with accessibility issues already taken care of, the focus can shift to optimising critical matters such as page load times and security. In other words, more time can be allocated to the core of the service.
Only a few short years ago, every one of Elisa’s digital touchpoints featured a different kind of main navigation. When different business units are operating quite independently, plenty of potential often goes unutilised due to the lack of coherent user, customer and brand experience.
We took all three pillars – design, development and business – into account and put special effort into understanding the different objectives. It soon became evident that in a company this large, complete freedom for every unit to operate in their own way is no longer an option.
Luckily, we didn’t need to start from scratch. We improved an already available early prototype and created a uniform main navigation that works better on both desktop and mobile. We developed the new navigation with contributions from another team, which helped us prove our cooperative ways of working.
Now, we’re at the stage that one of our target services is using the new global navigation at the moment, and the rest are currently working on it.
And, there does not have to be a single dramatic moment when everything improves overnight. A perfect world is built one small detail at a time. Even – and especially – the biggest changes require iterative development and ways of working.
It was followed by perhaps the most essential discovery for the long run: good cooperation between design, development and business is crucial for the success of both the Elisa Design System and Elisa.
User, customer and brand experience are all elements that evolve continuously, according to their own needs. A design system can’t be carved in stone – it must stay aligned with, and be a driving force for, those changes.
It should be every organisation’s top priority to provide designers and developers with opportunities to be the best they can be, and to help them unleash their potential in full. The eternal feedback loop is an essential factor in keeping the development wheel rolling. We learn continuously, and we use what we learn to further improve the outcome.
The Elisa Design System evolves along with our entire organisation – and the pace keeps picking up. As any ambitious designer or developer would, we are looking forward to that challenge.
Kristofer Pasanen
Product Owner, Elisa Design System & User Experience