Optus Design System
Date: 2023 - 2024
Role: UI Designer
Type: Professional Project for Optus
Role: UI Designer
Type: Professional Project for Optus
Context
One of the first projects I got to be involved in at Optus was helping with the development of their Design System. My manager was highly knowledgeable in the area and provided great mentorship through my first year at Optus.
As no one had officially been hired for this team I was fortunate enough to be considered one of Optus ‘OG’ design system members! As this project is still in progress and therefore confidential to audiences outside this team I will be sharing my learnings and a brief area of the type of work that I completed during my time in this team. However I am unable to show any finalised designs.
Auditing
Some of my initial learnings in the team were understanding the meaning and foundational elements that make up a Design System. A lot of the initial work I completed for this team included conducting audits across the website, taking note of existing components and their consistency levels.
A notable achievement I had early on in the team was presenting my findings on a colour audit to a wide audience of designers, which was highly commended it for it’s engaging format.
Component Building
Through completing these audits I was able to build foundational components including drop shadows, icon sizing, border widths as well as provide recommendations for how documentation should be organised. This included conducting a series of workshops within the team and with other designers from Optus.
Token Research
Another notable task that I completed independently was independently conducting research on design tokens and understanding how to enforce a team of designers in following best practice standards to ensure brand consistency. Through this analysis I was able to make recommendations and provide website mockups using design tokens to help provide a Most Viable Product (MVP) that could be shown across the business when advocating for a Design System.
Translating Tokens
I also had to frequently communicate with developers in understand how API’s would help translate these elements into code so that they could be implemented across Optus. An important part of the design system was translating the designs into code that could be readable for different platforms between the website and app.
Launch of the Design System
Shortly after I moved into my next rotation at Optus I was fortunate enough to witness the launch of Optus’s Design System. As I asked one of my previous members to be an ongoing mentor for myself I was able to keep informed about the latest updates as I felt very passionate about it. I felt so grateful to be involved in a project from its starting roots and to see it be executed and continually evolving.
