Helpful PDF worksheets and tools to get the design system effort up and running — and adopted! Kindly powered by How To Measure UX and Design Impact, a friendly course on how to show the impact of your incredible UX work on business.
So
we want to set up a new design system for your product. How do we get
it up and running from scratch? Do we start with key stakeholders, UI
audits, or naming conventions? And what are some of the critical conversations we need to have early to avoid problems down the line?
Fortunately, there are a few useful little helpers to get started — and they are the ones I tend to rely on quite a bit when initiating any design system projects.
Design System In 90 Days Canvas
Design System in 90 Days Canvas (FigJam template) is a handy set of useful questions
to start a design system effort. Essentially, it’s a roadmap to discuss
everything from the value of a design system to stakeholders, teams
involved, and components to start with.
tle helper to get a design system up and running — and adopted!
— in 90 days. Created for small and large companies that are building a
design system or plan to set up one. Kindly shared by Dan Mall.
Practical Design System Tactics
Design System Tactics is a practical overview of tactics to help designers make progress with a design system at every stage
— from crafting system principles to component discovery to design
system office hours to cross-brand consolidation. Wonderful work by the
one-and-only Ness Grixti.
Design System Checklist by Nathan Curtis (download the PDF) is a practical 2-page worksheet for a 60-minute team activity, designed to choose the right parts, products, and people for your design system.
Of
course, the point of a design system is not to be fully comprehensive
or cover every possible component you might ever need. It’s all about being useful enough
to help designers produce quality work faster and being flexible enough
to help designers make decisions rather than make decisions for them.
Useful Questions To Get Started With
The value of a design system lies in it being useful and applicable — for a large group of people in the organization. And according to Dan, a good start is to identify where exactly that value would be most helpful to tackle the company’s critical challenges and goals:
What is important to our organization at the highest level?
Who is important to our design system effort?
What unofficial systems already exist in design and code?
Which teams have upcoming needs that a system could solve?
Which teams have immediate needs that can grow our system?
Which teams should we and have we talked to?
Which stakeholders should we and have we talked to?
What needs, desires, and concerns do our stakeholders have?
What components do product or feature teams need now or soon?
What end-user problems/opportunities could a system address?
What did we learn about using other design systems?
What is our repeatable process for working on products?
What components will we start with?
What needs, desires, and concerns do our stakeholders share?
Where are our components currently being used or planned for?
Useful Resources
Here are a few other useful little helpers that might help you in your design system efforts:
A canvas often acts as a great conversation starter.
It’s rarely complete, but it brings up topics and issues that one
wouldn’t have discovered on the spot. We won’t have answers to all
questions right away, but we can start moving in the right direction to turn a design system effort into a success.
In my experience, most UX teams find themselves primarily
implementing other people’s ideas rather than leading the conversation
about user experience. This happens because stakeholders and
decision-makers often lack a deep understanding of UX’s capabilities and
potential. Without a clear UX strategy framework, professionals get
relegated to a purely tactical role — wireframing and testing solutions
conceived by others.
A well-crafted UX strategy framework changes
this dynamic. It helps UX teams take control of their role and
demonstrate real leadership in improving the user experience. Rather
than just responding to requests, you can proactively identify opportunities that deliver genuine business value. A strategic approach also helps educate stakeholders about UX’s full potential while building credibility through measurable results.
Finally, we outline actions to get us where we want to go.
Let me walk you through each part so you can shape a UX strategy that feels both practical and powerful.
Diagnosis: Know Your Starting Point
Before
we outline any plan, we need to assess our current situation. A clear
diagnosis shows where you can make the biggest impact. It also
highlights the gaps you must fill.
Identify Status Quo Failures
Start
by naming what isn’t working. You might find that your organization
lacks a UX team. Or the team has a budget that is too small. Sometimes
you uncover that user satisfaction scores are slipping. Frame these
challenges in business terms. For example, a slow sign‑up flow may be
costing you 20 percent of new registrations each month. That ties UX to
revenue and grabs attention.
Once you have a list of failures, ask yourself:
What outcome does each failure hurt?
A
slow checkout might reduce e‑commerce sales. Complicated navigation may
dent customer retention. Linking UX issues to business metrics makes
the case for change.
Next, visualize what an improved journey would look like.
A quick way is to create two simple journey maps. One shows the current
experience. The other shows an ideal path. Highlight key steps like discovery, sign‑up, onboarding, and support. Then ask:
How will this new journey help meet our business goals?
Maybe faster onboarding can cut support costs. Or a streamlined checkout can boost average order value.
Let me share a real-world example. When working with the Samaritans,
a UK mental health charity, we first mapped their current support
process. While their telephone support was excellent, they struggled
with email and text support, and had no presence on social media
platforms. This was largely because volunteers found it difficult to
manage multiple communication systems.
By mapping the current experience of the Samaritan users, we identified weaknesses that we could address in our UX strategy. (Large preview)
We then created an aspirational journey map
showing a unified system where volunteers could manage all
communication channels through a single interface. This clear vision
gave the organization a concrete goal that would improve the experience
for both users seeking help and the volunteers providing support.
Mapping an aspirational experience provided a clear vision everybody could work towards. (Large preview)
This vision gives everyone something to rally around. It also guides your later actions by showing the target state.
Audit Resources And Influence
Next,
turn your attention to what you have to work with. List your UX team
members and their skills. Note any budget set aside for research tools
or software licenses. Then identify where you have influence across the
organization. Which teams already seek your advice? Who trusts your
guidance? That might be the product group or marketing. You’ll lean on
these allies to spread UX best practices.
Finally, consider who
else matters. Are there policy owners, process leads, or executives you
need on board? Jot down names and roles so you can loop them in later.
Spot Your Constraints
Every
strategy must live within real‑world limits. Maybe there’s a headcount
freeze. Or IT systems won’t support a major overhaul. List any
technical, budget, or policy limits you face. Then accept them. You’ll
design your strategy to deliver value without asking for impossible
changes. Working within constraints boosts your credibility. It also forces creativity.
With the diagnosis complete, we know where we stand. Next, let’s look at how to steer our efforts.
Guiding Policies: Set the North Star
Guiding
policies give you guardrails. They help you decide which opportunities
to chase and which to skip. These policies reflect your priorities and the best path forward.
Choose A Tactical Or Strategic Approach
Early on, you must pick how your UX team will operate. You have two broad options:
Tactical You
embed UX people on specific projects. They run tests and design
interfaces hands‑on. This needs a bigger team. I like a ratio of one UX
pro for every two developers.
Strategic You act as a center of excellence. You advise other teams. You build guidelines, run workshops, and offer tools. This needs fewer hands but a broader influence.
Weigh
your resources against your goals. If you need to move fast on many
projects, go tactical. If you want to shift mindsets, work
strategically. Choose the approach with the best chance of success.
Define A Prioritization Method
You’ll face many requests for UX work. A clear way to sort them saves headaches. Over the years, I’ve used a simple digital triage. You score each request based on impact, effort, and risk.
Then, you work on the highest‑scoring items first. You can adapt this
model however you like. The point is to have a repeatable, fair way to
say yes or no.
Create A Playbook Of Principles
A playbook holds your core design principles, standard operating procedures, and templates. It might include:
A design system for UI patterns;
Standards around accessibility or user research;
Guides for key tasks such as writing for the web;
Templates for common activities like user interviews.
This
playbook becomes your team’s shared reference. It helps others repeat
your process. It also captures the know‑how you need as your team grows.
A playbook helps you document your strategies, policies, principles, and standard operating procedures. (Large preview)
Plan Your Communication
Strategy fails when people don’t know about it. You need a plan to engage stakeholders. I find it helpful to use a RACI chart — who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed. Then decide:
How often will you send updates?
Which channels should you use (email, Slack, weekly demos)?
Who leads each conversation?
Clear, regular communication keeps everyone looped in. It also surfaces concerns early so you can address them.
With guiding policies in place, you have a clear way to decide what to work on. Now, let’s turn to making things happen.
Action Plan: Bring Strategy To Life
Actions
are the concrete steps you take to deliver on your guiding policies.
They cover the projects you run, the support you give, and the risks you
manage.
Start by listing the projects you’ll tackle. These might be:
Running a discovery phase for a new product.
Building a design system for your marketing team.
Conducting user tests on your main flow.
For each project, note what you will deliver and when.
You can use your digital triage scores to pick the highest priorities.
Keep each project scope small enough to finish in a few sprints. That
way, you prove value quickly.
Offer Training And Tools
If
you choose a strategic approach, you need to empower others. Plan
workshops on core UX topics. Record short videos on testing best
practices. Build quick reference guides. Curate a list of tools:
Prototyping apps,
Research platforms,
Analytics dashboards.
Make these resources easy to find in your playbook.
Assign Stakeholder Roles
Your
strategy needs executive backing. Identify a senior sponsor who can
break through roadblocks. Outline what you need them to do. Maybe it’s
championing a new budget line or approving key hires. Also, pin down
other collaborators. Who on the product side will help you scope new
features? Who on the IT team will support user research tooling? Getting
clear roles avoids confusion.
Manage Risks and Barriers
No plan goes off without a hitch. List your biggest risks, such as:
A hiring freeze delays tactical hires;
Key stakeholders lose interest;
Technical debt slows down new releases.
For
each risk, jot down how you’ll handle it. Maybe you should shift to a
fully strategic approach if hiring stalls. Or you can send a weekly
one‑page update to reengage sponsors. Having a fallback keeps you calm
when things go sideways.
Before we wrap up, let’s talk about making strategy stick.
Embedding UX Into The Culture
A strategy shines only if you deeply embed it into your organization’s culture. Here’s how to make that happen:
Build awareness and enthusiasm
Run regular “lunch and learn” sessions to showcase UX wins.
Host an annual UX day or mini-conference to boost visibility.
Create a monthly UX salon where teams share challenges and victories.
Make UX visible and tangible
Display personas and journey maps in office spaces.
Add design principles to everyday items like mousepads and mugs.
Share success metrics and improvements in company communications.
Embed UX into processes
Establish clear UX policies and best practices.
Review and update procedures that might hinder a good user experience.
Create a healthy competition between teams through UX metrics.
These
tactics transform your strategy from a document into an organizational
movement. They foster a culture where everyone thinks about user
experience, not just the UX team. Remember, cultural change takes time —
but consistent, visible efforts will gradually shift mindsets across
the organization.
Implementing Your UX Strategy: From Plan To Practice
We
started by diagnosing your current state. Then we set policies to guide
your efforts. Finally, we laid out an action plan to deliver results.
This three-part framework keeps your UX work tied to real business
needs. It also gives you clarity, focus, and credibility.
However,
creating a strategy is the easy part — implementing it is where the
real challenge lies. This is precisely why the book Strategy and the Fat Smoker
carries its distinctive title. Just as someone who is overweight or
smokes knows exactly what they need to do, we often know what our UX
strategy should be. The difficult part is following through and making
it a reality.
Success requires consistent engagement and persistence in the face of setbacks. As Winston Churchill wisely noted,
“Success is going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
This
perfectly captures the mindset needed to implement a successful UX
strategy — staying committed to your vision even when faced with
obstacles and setbacks
