✒️

Integrated content standards with our design system to scale our operations

Deliverables
ResourcesMicrocopyIA

Summary

Used support operation strategies to evolve our content standards alongside our new design system.

Background

My team was small. We couldn’t cover all DocuSign products, yet. In 2021, I started to build upon and refresh our existing content guidelines.

Our "content system" is like an internal help center for our partners in other departments. Anyone who builds products at DocuSign should be able to reference these guidelines, at anytime. That way, they can quickly confirm the casing guidelines for a particular component. And, when folks came to us for help, we have more bandwidth to help with tougher challenges — like strategy.

Over time, I recruited more teammates to help me build out our guidelines. To make it easier to scale, we made templates for our entries. The short template was the minimum requirements for a complete entry. The long template was the ideal version we hoped to achieve, eventually. Each contributor could decide how much work they wanted to put into their assigned components. As long as we met the minimum, we were good to go. Contributors could make the executive decision to expand on the minimum in order to make an entry more helpful and impactful for the team.
Over time, I recruited more teammates to help me build out our guidelines. To make it easier to scale, we made templates for our entries. The short template was the minimum requirements for a complete entry. The long template was the ideal version we hoped to achieve, eventually. Each contributor could decide how much work they wanted to put into their assigned components. As long as we met the minimum, we were good to go. Contributors could make the executive decision to expand on the minimum in order to make an entry more helpful and impactful for the team.
This is an example of our guidelines related to buttons. I wrote this one using the long template. Images with example patterns are redacted.
This is an example of our guidelines related to buttons. I wrote this one using the long template. Images with example patterns are redacted.
This is an entry I authored that consolidates five design system components into one entry. I wanted to make it easier for our audience to reference content guidelines for similar components, so I consolidated them into one entry.
This is an entry I authored that consolidates five design system components into one entry. I wanted to make it easier for our audience to reference content guidelines for similar components, so I consolidated them into one entry.

Results

Because of this work that I led, we were able to get buy-in from the design systems team to start integrating these guidelines directly into our design system documentation. 🎉🎉🎉

These guidelines also helped shift our conversations with stakeholders so that they were more meaningful. We spent less time talking about things like capitalization and accessible button copy and spent more time talking about bigger challenges — like terminology and information hierarchy.

Portfolio

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Integrated content standards with our design system to scale our operations
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Deliverables I’ve been responsible for over the course of my career
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