WW (Weight Watchers)

Studio Tech Design System

Role: Lead Product Designer

Client: WW (Weight Watchers)

Date: 2019-2020

Studio Tech is a suite of tools, processes and resources aimed to help support the WW studio experience. Jenny DS is the Design System built within the Studio Tech portfolio.

My role

Focusing on product and design strategy in collaboration with 2 other designers.
Tasks included design direction socialization, product vision, interaction design, prototyping, running design sprints, leading visual/product designers on multiple crews and a close partnership with research teams.

Checking the results

Looking back at
what we learned

Design file versioning conflicts

Design file management time

UI related design QA

Live experience team questions

Global filing system reduced a lot of manual copy / paste work for designers
Communication framework helped the whole team product, design, engineering, service design be on the same page about how we go about communicating in app to our members, coaches & guides
Design QA process evolved from screen by screen pixel adjustments to experience wide pattern and component evaluations

The Task

Supporting our small but mighty teams

While working on building Studio App (case study link) the studio tech design team was growing and was no longer able to operate under a single designer.

We needed a way to keep designers unified and make sure that design decisions were handled systematically both for the sake of designers as well as for our engineering partners.

The Challenge

Evaluating
& Systematizing

Some aspects of the experience had already been built, so the team needed to evaluate what parts of the existing experience would be incorporated into the design system.

Open questions around messaging consistency, usability & interaction standards, as well as color & typography usage were some of the most important topics for both design and engineering.

The Hurdles

Cross-team
process ambiguity

The WW app is used by members across the world and was handled by a separate design team. That app had no formal design system, making it challenging to use as a scaffold for the new Studio App (case study link).

We ran into numerous situations that were unique to the coaching and guiding experience which made it a challenge to identify the boundaries between apps. Some of the majors questions were:

How should different designers on the Studio Tech team keep work synchronized?
Where should the design teams collaborate and when might collaboration hinder member accessibility?
What foundational elements should be shared across experiences?
How should different use cases be handled?
Does consistency across apps always lead to the best user experience?

The Solution

Building systems
from what we have

While collaboration across design teams can help teams better meet user expectations across experiences the ultimate goal of both teams is to do what is the best for the user. For us, this meant that sometimes divergent design experiences are the better way forward.

WW (Weight Watchers)

Studio Tech Design System