Success is 20 percent skills and 80 percent strategy. –Jim Rohn

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) present UX teams with a unique opportunity to unify and elevate user experiences across merging organizations. Strategic planning is crucial to seamlessly integrating design systems, aligning product visions, and strengthening the digital presence, ensuring that the transition not only meets business objectives but also enhances user satisfaction and lays the groundwork for future growth.

Features, Interviews and Presentations

• Design System Podcast guest speaker

• Systems Is Everywhere webinar presenter

• Design Systems for a Data Rich Experience panelist

• Talking Tokens panelist

Challenges: In the face of a merger and acquisition, UX team is challenged with integrating disparate design systems, aligning different product visions, and harmonizing digital experiences across the newly combined organizations. This transition must be managed in a way that not only preserves and enhances user satisfaction but also ensures consistency and efficiency, all while adapting to new business goals and user needs. The core issue is to navigate these complexities effectively to create a cohesive, user-centered experience that supports long-term growth and success for the merged entity.

Strategic implementation: A successful UX strategy should focus on three key pillars- UX Infrastructure, New Initiatives, and Governance and in this order.

To navigate this successfully one has to deep dive in these complexities, adopt the process of divergence to explore differences, then identify similarities while communicate and promote convergence to consolidate and define a unified solution for all parties.

Key Pillar #1: UX Infrastructure: UX infrastructure is the backbone of any successful user experience strategy, providing the foundational tools, systems, and processes that enable consistent, scalable, and high-quality design across an organization. It includes design systems, component libraries, workflow processes, collaboration tools and templates that streamline the creation and maintenance of digital products. A strong UX infrastructure ensures that teams can work efficiently, maintain design consistency, and quickly adapt to changes, all while delivering a seamless and cohesive user experience. By investing in robust UX infrastructure, organizations can enhance productivity, reduce redundancy, and ensure that every user interaction aligns with the overall brand vision and user needs. It is a process of optimization and continuel evolvement.

• Standardization of tools and templates- Consolidate, standardize and streamline business tools to generate contents and analytics for digital products-

  • Excel AddIn and Google Sheets- enable reporters and analysts to create brand consistent charts and graphs to incorporate in reports and digital products.

  • PowerPoint Template, Google Slides- enable reporters and analysts to create brand consistent reports and presentations to be embedded in the digital products.

  • Power BI Template- enable reporters and analysts to create brand consistent reports and presentations to be embedded in the digital products.

  • Tokenized chart color hierarchy- ensures consistency of chart colors across all tools and digital products.

• Design Systems- leveraging the understanding of these tools, templates and how third party systems work provides the fundamentals to building a holistic design system consistent and in alignment with its various parts.

  • Vision- Develop an end-to-end design system that ensures cohesive decision-making between design and development, leveraging a tokenized system within a streamlined CI/CD process. This system should feature a centralized repository for design assets, a comprehensive library of reusable components, and well-defined design tokens and guidelines. By integrating with CI/CD, the system enables real-time updates, automated testing, and consistent deployment of design changes, fostering seamless collaboration and maintaining high-quality standards throughout the development lifecycle.

  • Pilot project- especially with limited resources, leveraging an approved development team, collaborating on pilot project achieves “Feeding two birds with one scone”

  • Selecting a method- Building a design system for an organization can vary greatly depending on factors like company size, product diversity, UX team structure, available resources, and timing. The "ideal" approach is customized to meet each company’s specific needs. Key considerations include deciding whether to leverage an existing system or build one from scratch. In this case, the decision to build from scratch was informed by extensive qualitative research and insights from industry leaders at Spotify, Meta, and Adobe. Additionally, resources like “Atomic Design” by Brad Frost, “Design That Scales” by Dan Mall, and broader works such as Ray Dalio’s “Principles” and “The Changing World Order” were instrumental in honing a comprehensive understanding of systems thinking, guiding strategic decision-making throughout the process.

  • Component-First Approach vs. Token-First Approach- Which is better? It depends, as each option has its own strengths and drawbacks. I'd be happy to dive deeper into the details if you're interested in exploring this further.

  • Solidary, Centralized or Federated Model- The “ideal” model depends on various factors and circumstances and may not be fully defined at the project's outset. As the project evolves, a hybrid approach often emerges, driven by extensive communication and a holistic understanding of the company. This process involves detailed audits of existing products, active participation in meetings, and deep involvement across multiple products and projects. By considering the pros and cons from all stakeholders, identifying overlaps, and defining tailored solutions, the model adapts to the organization’s unique needs.

Key Pillar #2: New Initiatives: UX New Initiatives are essential for providing future direction to a UX department, offering a focus point, or "drishti", that acts as a catalyst for innovation and growth. These initiatives allow teams to explore new design approaches, experiment with emerging technologies, and address evolving user needs. By setting clear priorities and goals, new initiatives influence and shape the UX infrastructure, guiding the development and refinement of design systems, tools, and processes. This alignment ensures that the infrastructure evolves in tandem with strategic goals, enhancing consistency and efficiency while supporting the department’s creative and operational needs. This proactive approach not only energizes the team but also aligns their efforts with the broader business objectives, fostering a culture of creativity and strategic focus that guides the department's trajectory.

• AI- Explore the fundamentals of how AI work, how it relates to systems, how it can be leveraged to improve product and experiences such as chatbot features.

• Web apps and platforms- Working on diverse projects and new initiatives across multiple subsidiaries has equipped me with the breadth and insight needed to thoroughly understand and meet the varied product needs of the organization.

Key Pillar #3: UX Governance: UX governance involves establishing frameworks and guidelines to ensure consistency, quality, and alignment in user experience across an organization.

It is crucial for maintaining consistency, quality, and alignment across all user experience efforts within an organization. By defining clear guidelines and responsibilities, UX governance helps to manage and streamline decision-making, promote adherence to best practices, and facilitate effective collaboration among teams. This structured approach not only enhances the overall user experience by ensuring that design solutions are cohesive and well-integrated but also supports the organization's strategic objectives by aligning UX efforts with business goals and user needs. Through effective governance, organizations can sustain high-quality user experiences and adapt to evolving requirements with greater agility.

• Design System Guidelines: Creating comprehensive documentation for design systems that includes standards for UI components, design tokens, and interaction patterns to ensure uniformity across all digital products.

• Design Reviews: regularly attend product and design meetings, brainstorm, share and evaluate new designs against established UX principles, assets, and guidelines to maintain consistency and quality.

• Accessibility Standards: Enforcing accessibility guidelines (such as WCAG) to ensure that all digital products are usable by people with disabilities, promoting inclusivity.

• Onboarding and Training: Providing ongoing training, brown bags, tutorials and resources for UX teams and cross functional teams members on governance practices, tools, and methodologies to ensure adherence to best practices.