The Problem

The approximately 30 software products owned and developed by Hitachi Data Systems were being engineered in silos.

The efforts created a lot of assets and practices which were compatible with only one product. The cost was high and delivered reduced efficiency and returns. There was not a central UX documentation portal or repository to align products with visual or experience consistency. Developers often improvised to satisfy short-term deadlines and features.

The User

Personas were identified for UI designers, UX designers, product owners and developers who work on Hitachi software products.

The primary user was the software developer.

Because the UX teams worked directly with the developer teams, domain knowledge was part of the day-to-day routine.

Other users the design system supported were marketing and product owners, in addition to primary stakeholders for any product.

The solution proposed was an open-source repository with UI assets, best practices, and documentation.

Initially the product/service was to be named GUXC (Global User Experience Collaborative), but eventually was given a simple moniker of Koa, which is a Japanese translation of the anglo word "core".

The blueprint and roadmap for the project began with a design conference in Yokohama, Japan.

In addition to a list of users, solutions and features were listed and organized into workflows and a sitemap.

The product was intended to support multiple products with one central service. The most efficient way to reach these goals was to create a cost center.

A business plan was written, and included operating a usability testing lab, in addition to a UX Director, two UX/UI Designers, and a developer, to meet the committment.

A broad approach was taken to afford scalability for various products and user bases.

The mission statement emphasized innovation and collaboration, so that one group would not be able to dictate absolute control over styles and best practices.

The strategy called for a boilerplate UI code base which could be cloned and applied to individual products.

Product teams would then complete their cycle and add any new design patterns they required.

At the end of a cycle, the collaborative could review and add new design patterns which were developed.

The business plan was reviewed by the financial team, and a budget was proposed.

Research was done to determine how other major corporations with a successful design strategy organized a design system.

This research was applied to a final presentation to the executive level of our organization. It was approved and considered a value to engineering.

The Koa Design Pattern Library was then slowly implemented to other product teams. Initially other products could use only parts of it, until a common framework could be used across the organization on the back-end.