What can DesignOps do for you? by Carol Smith at TLMUX in Montreal

What can DesignOps
do for you?
Carol Smith @carologic
TLMUX, Montreal, Quebec. February 28, 2019
This work is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial
4.0 International License except where
noted otherwise.

What can Design Ops do for you? / @carologic
DesignOps
Intro
Initiating
and Organizing Teams

Consistency with
the way people work*
Different ways of working
may require inconsistencies
*Grudin, J. 1989. The case against user interface consistency. Commun. ACM 32, 10 (Oct. 1989), 1164-1173.
- J. Grudin

Breaks down team and discipline
silos… minimise wastage,
deliver quality outputs and learn
quickly from any mistakes.
- Stu Collett
Why our industry is paying more attention to Design Ops in 2018. By Stu Collett, UX Collective. Jan 25, 2018.
https://uxdesign.cc/the-rise-of-design-ops-in-2018-f439edbc1513

Why Operations?
Time
Resources
Distributed teams
Scaling/efficiency of work
Improvement of processes

“Having a “DesignOps mindset”
in your team is important,
no matter how big your company is.
It creates efficiencies in the long run,
and generates more consistent work.”
DesignOps: the questions you’re probably asking yourself now. By Fabricio Teixeira.
https://uxdesign.cc/designops-the-questions-youre-probably-asking-yourself-now-fdac491bfe4f
- Fabricio Teixeira

Ops work is not new
At least 10 years
Term created ~3 years ago
Adapted from DevOps

Still evolving….
Images from: “Introducing DesignOps: Amplify the value of design" By Dave Malouf, DesignOps
Summit and IxDA. In“DesignOps Handbook.” Apple Books by Kate Battles, Meredith Black, Dave
Malouf, Collin Whitehead, and Gregg Bernstein (editor).

“DesignOps is everything that
supports high quality crafts, methods,
and processes."
- Dave Malouf, IxDA,
DesignOps Summit
Excerpt From: Kate Battles, Meredith Black, Dave Malouf, Collin Whitehead, and
Gregg Bernstein (editor). DesignOps Handbook.” Apple Books

DesignOps and ResearchOps
1. Day-To-Day work
2. Functional Maturation
3. Growth & Development

1. Day-To-Day Work: Tools and Templates

Tool Selection and Licensing
ModeratedUn-Moderated
Complex
Simple

Day-To-Day Work: Frameworks, Patterns
Sophisticated products
Large families of work
Squads - related problems
Reduces effort, improve
consistency Design Systems - Material
Material by Google: https://material.io/design/

Design Language / System / Style Guide
IBM Design Language: https://www.ibm.com/design/language/elements/color

ResOps: Sourcing and Recruiting
Tracking participation
Screening participants
Scheduling
Building panel
Directions
Consent Form (Adult), Usability.gov, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/resources/templates/consent-form-adult.html

ResOps: Consent, NDA’s and Incentives
Consent Form (Adult), Usability.gov, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/resources/templates/consent-form-adult.html

ResOps: Coordinating
Logistics - locations
Reservations - travel
Participant main contact
Lab greeting

ResOps: Gear Management
Observation
Testing
Tablets
Phones
Clean laptops
Lab management

ResOps: Prepare team - mentally / physically
Photo:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Domestic_shorthaired_cat_face.jpg

Process maturation
Organization
- Folder structure
- Longer-term archiving
Planning
Budget and governance

Workflow

How does work progress?
What is a good process?
Who initiates a project?
How should a project start?

Rationale
Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox. Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users.
March 19, 2000. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html
Number of Test Participants
Participants are representative of specific user group and are doing representative tasks
More participants take more time, cost more money - significantly diminishing returns.

ResOps: High volume / longitudinal studies
Track longitudinal research
Support diary studies
Administer large surveys

ResOps: Archiving and tracking insights
Knowledge across teams
Match personas, products
Curate, collect data from teams

Headcount and hiring
Project pipeline
Retention
Education, conferences
Evangelization

Pittsburgh, PA - photo by Dave DiCello

Primary Activities
1. Day-To-Day work

Initiating DesignOps

Potential issues to solve
Alignment
Benefits of scaling
Regularly scheduled studies
Meeting deadlines
Design critiques /feedback sessions

“What we’ve learned over time is that
when our [designers] are spending more
than 50% of their time doing operational
work, that’s a problem.”
- Adrienne Allnutt, LinkedIn
Excerpt From: Kate Battles, Meredith Black, Dave Malouf, Collin Whitehead, and Gregg
Bernstein (editor). “DesignOps Handbook.” Apple Books.

Leadership understand need and benefits?
Long-term planning
- Scaling operations
- Creating patterns
- Processes

Leadership understand need and benefits?
Expected future work vs. resources
- Faster more efficient
- Reduced training
- Reduced arbitrary decision making

Build the case
Team complaints
Quality – increasing consistency
Cost savings
– Reducing tools and processes
– Saving time

Get Started
Identify champion (Director level and above)
Recruit cross-functional team
Core group (1-3 people):
– Determine initial “experiment”
– Scope initial role
– Develop job description

Move forward!
Job description
Initial (essential) tasks
Internal hire if possible
Understands design/UX
Start small – 1 squad or team

Regular Retrospectives – core team +
What is working?
What is not?
What needs to be improved?
Is the model of organization working?
Where are there gaps?

Organizing
DesignOps

Vary by
• Team size
• Knowledge of design
• Organizational skills
• Type of organization

“We needed a team
dedicated to running
a highly integrated
and effective design org.”
- Adrian Cleave, Airbnb
DesignOps at Airbnb: How we manage effective design at scale. By Adrian Cleave.
https://airbnb.design/designops-airbnb/

Airbnb: 5 Teams
Design Program Management – holistic process
Design Tools - empower and amplify designers
Localization – international and radically local
Production Design - highest quality
Team Coordinators – healthy, happy teams
and sane leadership
DesignOps at Airbnb: How we manage effective design at scale. By Adrian Cleave.

Project/Squad Support
Design Manager
Designer
Designer
Designer
Adapted From: Kate Battles, Meredith Black, Dave Malouf, Collin Whitehead, and Gregg
DesOps Leader Design Manager DesOps Leader
Designer
Designer
Designer

Embed as Partners
Own schedule and milestones
Drive and improve creative process
Ensure needs met

Design/UX Hygiene
DesignOps Leader
Design Manager
Designer
Designer
Designer
Design Manager
Designer
Designer
Designer
Design Manager
Designer
Designer
Designer

Sets standards and reﬁne processes
Tooling, systems
Communications and meetings
Team development

Sharing Information
Infusing patterns across the organization
Awareness of cross-team efforts

Growth - Hybrid
DesignOps Leader
Design Manager DesOps Design Manager DesOps
Designer
Designer
Designer
Designer
Designer
Designer

“The most effective DesignOps teams
are servant leaders to their
organizations
and respected peers to design leaders
and teams.”
- Collin Whitehead, Dropbox

Successful DesignOps
Keep leadership involved
Spread good news
Update your stakeholders
• Show successes and impact
• Progress on improvements
Excerpt From: Kate Battles, Meredith Black, Dave Malouf, Collin Whitehead, and Gregg

Integrate DesignOps
Keep it practical – start small
Where can DesignOps provide value?
• Day-To-Day work
• Functional Maturation
• Growth & Development

“one person shouldn’t do it
all—it takes a well-rounded
team of different talents to
succeed and thrive.”
- Meredith Black, Pinterest

Continue the conversation...
LinkedIn: CarolJSmith
Twitter: @Carologic
Slideshare: carologic

Appendix
Information and Resources

Resources
• Design Ops — A New Discipline. By Andy Budd, Clearleft. September 6, 2017
https://clearleft.com/posts/design-ops-a-new-discipline
• DesignOps: the questions you’re probably asking yourself now: A 5-min guide to the topic all your designer
friends are talking about. By Fabricio Teixeira, UX Collective. Jun 19, 2018. https://uxdesign.cc/designops-
the-questions-youre-probably-asking-yourself-now-fdac491bfe4f
• Why our industry is paying more attention to Design Ops in 2018: Where design is a standalone entity and
creative delivery stalls, the commercial and cultural impact across the organisation can be harmful. By Stu
Collett, UX Collective. Jan 25, 2018. https://uxdesign.cc/the-rise-of-design-ops-in-2018-f439edbc1513
• DesignOps at Airbnb: How we manage effective design at scale. By Adrian Cleave, Airbnb Design.
• DesignOps Handbook. By Kate Battles, Meredith Black, Dave Malouf, Collin Whitehead, and Gregg Bernstein
(editor), DesignBetter by InVision. https://www.designbetter.co/designops-handbook
• DesignOps Summit 2017 and 2018. By Rosenfeld Media. https://rosenfeldmedia.com/designopssummit2018/

David Malouf's Writings
• What is design operations and why should you care? By David Malouf, Designer Hangout. Jan 4, 2017
https://medium.com/designer-hangout/what-is-design-operations-and-why-should-you-care-b72f02b47761
• An Introduction to Design Operations. By Dave Malouf, Digital Ocean. October 30, 2017.
https://blog.digitalocean.com/introduction-to-design-ops/
• Understanding the role of design operations on your team. By Dave Malouf, Inside Design. Feb 28, 2018
https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/understanding-design-operations/

Additional Resources
• Cordes, R. E. and Spine, T. M. 2007. Transcending organizational boundaries: virtual team approach in UI guideline
development. In Proceedings of the 2007 Symposium on Computer Human interaction For the Management of
information Technology (Cambridge, Massachusetts, March 30 - 31, 2007). CHIMIT '07. ACM, New York, NY, 7.
• Gale, S. A Collaborative Approach to Developing Style Guides. Conference proceedings on Human factors in
Computing Systems April 13 - 18, 1996, Vancouver Canada. ACM Press, (pp. 362-367).
• Galitz, W. O. (2002). The essential guide to user interface design: An introduction to GUI design principles and
techniques (Second Edition). Wiley: New York, NY.
• Grudin, J. 1989. The case against user interface consistency. Commun. ACM 32, 10 (Oct. 1989), 1164-1173.
• Kuniavsky, M. and Raghavan, S. 2005. Guidelines are a tool: building a design knowledge management system for
programmers. In Proceedings of the 2005 Conference on Designing For User Experience (San Francisco, California,
November 03 - 05, 2005). Designing For User Experiences, vol. 135. AIGA: American Institute of Graphic Arts, New
York, NY, 8.

More Resources
• Mayhew, D. J. (1992). Principles and guidelines in software user interface design. Prentice Hall: Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
• Rae, A. 2007. Helping the operator in the loop: practical human machine interface principles for safe computer
controlled systems. In Proceedings of the Twelfth Australian Workshop on Safety Critical Systems and Software and
Safety-Related Programmable Systems - Volume 86 (Adelaide, Australia, August 30 - 31, 2007). T. Cant, Ed.
Conferences in Research and Practice in Information Technology Series, vol. 336. Australian Computer Society,
Darlinghurst, Australia, 61-70.
• Schemenaur, P. J. and Pawlick, C. 2007. Evaluating guidelines for writing user interface text. In Proceedings of the 25th
Annual ACM international Conference on Design of Communication (El Paso, Texas, USA, October 22 - 24, 2007).
SIGDOC '07. ACM, New York, NY, 216-220.
• Shneiderman, B. (1987). Designing the user interface – Strategies for effective human-computer interaction. Reading,
MA: Addison-Wesley.

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