an organizational story: salesforce lightning design (nalini kotamraju at enterprise ux 2016)

An Organizational Story: Salesforce Lightning Design SystemEnterprise UX 2016, San Antonio, UX, USA - June 9, 2016

Nalini Kotamraju, Ph.D.Senior Director, User Research & User Experience, Salesforcenkotamraju@salesforce.com@nkotamraju

Salesforce. What do they do, again?

user experience

designers | researchers | prototypers | ux engineers

Researcher encounters Design Systems !

Design Systems ! CSS ! Framework ! Subclasses !

People ! Relationships ! Organizations ! Politics !

A good year for Salesforce Lightning Design System

Why did the Salesforce Lightning Design System Succeed?Question

It’s not about technologyHint

It’s about people Answer

Solving problemsTheme 1

Solving Problems

Addressing People’s Needs

Customer & Partner’s Needs

Solving problemsAddressing people’s needsTheme 1

Addressing Salesforce Employee’s Needs

“Designers were frustrated at the delta between what they envisioned and what actually got built.”

- Salesforce UX Team Member

“CSS is a bear. Engineers want to write business logic and sexy back-end code. They don’t want to mess with moving stuff around on a screen.”

– Salesforce UX Team Member

“We removed the gap between what designers want and developers deliver”

- Salesforce UX Team Member

Trust in people &cultivate people’s trustTheme 2

Trust in Design

Trust within the Design Systems Team

Sliding scale of giving a f&*!

Build on Engineering’s Existing Trust

Create Trust by Showing (Not Telling)

“Living components were a conversation starter. We built them as quickly as possible. The faster we worked, the more we got done, the better the conversations went.”

- Salesforce UX Team Member

Share. With people. Lots of people.Theme 3

Share Often & Document

Brown bags CSS office hours Chatter group Slack channel Town halls Sprint reviews Bug bashes Document. Document. Document.

“Giving it back to the community. That’s why it’s open source.”

- Salesforce UX Team Member

“Going open source made all the difference.”

- Salesforce Executive

Sales is in the name.

Summary

Addressing People’s Needs• Theme 1

Trust in People & Cultivate Trust in People• Theme 2

Share. With People. Lots of People.• Theme 3

“No one has it all figured out yet.”Design Systems

thank y u

An Organizational Story: Salesforce Lightning Design SystemEnterprise UX 2016, San Antonio, UX, USA - June 9, 2016

Nalini Kotamraju, Ph.D.Senior Director, User Research & User Experience, Salesforcenkotamraju@salesforce.com@nkotamraju