Design System

A Unified Design System for Informatica's Cloud Platform

Overview

My Role: UX Architect
The Team: I led a cross-functional design team of three UX designers and two visual designers. I was the primary point of contact and strategic lead, responsible for the system's vision, roadmap, and adoption.
The Problem: The Informatica Cloud Platform serves as the host for a broad portfolio of products, catering to a wide variety of personas from technical developers and administrators to business-focused data analysts and stewards. This diversity required an exceptionally rich and versatile design system capable of supporting sophisticated layouts and extensive interaction patterns, including complex forms, data tables, and visual editors. With several services already on the cloud—each with a different look and feel—and numerous on-prem products needing migration, there was an urgent need to unify the user experience and prevent further fragmentation.
The Solution: To solve this, I led the initiative to create a comprehensive design system. This system provided a centralized library of reusable components, clear UX patterns, and robust guidelines for how to use them. It was conceived as a living product to serve all of Informatica's cloud services, empowering teams to build higher-quality, consistent products faster, while accommodating a wide range of complex use cases.

Scope and Goals

Strategic Goals: Our primary objective was to drive efficiency and consistency across the organization. We aimed to:

Increase the speed of design and development by providing reusable, pre-built components.
Achieve a cohesive and consistent user experience across our cloud products.
Establish a "single source of truth" to eliminate design inconsistencies and reduce UI-related bugs.
Strengthen the Informatica brand identity through a unified look and feel.

My Core Responsibilities:

Leadership & Vision: Set the strategic direction for the design system, create the project roadmap, and mentor the design team.
Cross-functional Collaboration: Act as the key liaison between design, engineering, and product leadership to ensure alignment and secure buy-in across the company.
Pattern & Component Definition: Oversee the definition and documentation of all foundational elements, from core interaction patterns like navigation and editing models to the detailed look and feel.
Adoption & Governance: Develop and execute a strategy for guiding product teams on how to adopt and contribute to the design system effectively.

Process

Discovery & Foundation:
- We began by conducting a full interface inventory across our entire product portfolio. We started with the core services that were already available on the cloud and then extended the audit to cover the thin client on-prem products. The audit serves as the basis for the creation of the core set of components and patterns.
- This research allowed us to prioritize the most critical components and patterns that would deliver the most immediate value to the organization.
Design & Documentation:
- Defining Foundations: My team established the core principles of our visual identity, including a unified color palette, typography scale, spacing system, and iconography library.
- Component & Pattern Library: We designed and documented a comprehensive library of reusable components, from atomic elements like buttons and inputs to complex patterns like data tables, editing models, and global navigation. Each component included clear usage guidelines, accessibility standards, and "do's and don'ts."
- Centralized Documentation: We built a dedicated documentation site to serve as the "single source of truth." This site was the central hub for designers and developers to access guidelines, download assets, and copy code snippets.
Driving Adoption:
- I worked in lockstep with the design system engineering lead to ensure a seamless workflow from design to code.
- My team created a component library in Axure RP that helped designers create fast and consistent designs.
- I worked closely with UX designers, product managers and engineering teams across the company, guiding how to adopt the design system, as well as discovering new use cases and needs for adjustments and enhancements for the design system.