Redesigning of Podium Design System
This case study highlights my three-year experience in maintaining a design system during organisational restructuring and changes in product direction.
Podium
Podium is a construction design automation & feasibility platform for real estate developers, architects, engineers, and suppliers. Podium uses automation algorithms to accelerate the design-to-supply process, reducing the time needed to realise a construction project.
For context, Lendlease is where I started before Podium. At that time, Podium was a digital unit within the Lendlease organisation and was previously called Podium for Development.
My Role
I joined the Podium team as a senior product designer in July 2022. We operated a lean team with 10 designers at that time for different product lines within the Lendlease Digital Unit.
My responsibilities are mainly on end-to-end design and feature delivery. But later on I took on ownership of the design system, and my responsibilities extend to the following:
Lead and own the design aspect of the design system
Gather feedback, design, test, and maintain the components of the design system.
Get buy-ins from stakeholders such as product managers, design managers, and engineering leads for implementing roadmaps and plans for the design system
Collaborate with engineers for design system implementation
Challenge
When I took on the design system, designers were having many issues across platforms. Different teams were working in silos, resulting in duplicated components and conflicting design patterns. These problems slowed down the design process and made it harder to maintain a cohesive experience across the platform.
So I run the workshop, looking at the Figma component library analytics, and the following are the findings.
Inconsistent UI across platforms
Inconsistency across design and development
Difficult to find, difficult to use – the designers spend more time trying to understand the component than actually designing a feature
Inconsistency between different products
Painful design → dev handoff
Duplicate or conflicting components, complex component structures
Difficult to scale new features quickly
Solution
Short-term goals (6-8 months)
Get stakeholder buy-in
Improve searchability
Simplify components and library
Documentation
Standardise usage across different platforms
Long-term goal
Design Tokens
Federated Design System
Design System website
Publishing Design System
Design System v1.1
After 6 months of work planning, design reviews and iterations, implementation reviews and testing, we get to the Design System v1.1. The following are the activities that I did on a weekly and bi-weekly basis to get the design system v1.1 up and running.
Design & Review
Design component
Weekly internal review with the design team
Testing the component
Iteration
Publishing
Implementation and migration
Twice a month work review and prioritised component implementation and migration
Storybook updates
In 2023, Podium has 2 main consumer-facing products and 2 internal products. Design System v1.1 has to cater to different products, and as a result, we began to explore and incorporate visualisation, advanced table layouts, and form displays into the design system.
Design System v2.0
At the end of 2023, Podium decided to separate itself as an independent start-up from the Lendlease organisation. Teams were separated, and the design system has been redefined. We took this opportunity to upgrade v1.1 to v2. Design System v2 includes what we wanted to address in long term goals and more.
Design System v2 Changes
Breaking away from other product lines — become Podium
New branding and design language
Totally new Foundation library
Convert Component, Icon library to align with new branding
New navigation, new UI designs
Design Tokens
Communication
As part of the design system governance and maintenance, we have established the following mode of communication.
Dedicated Slack channel
Provided a single space for updates, feedback, and quick discussions.
Design System Newsletter
Weekly digest highlighting changes, new releases, and best practices.
Bug report workflow
Workflow for designers to flag issues or challenges when designing UI.
Having these approaches created stronger visibility and faster feedback loops among the team, and everyone has a sense that they are contributing to the design system and share ownership.
Outcomes
Though we didn't plan and weren't able to track the metrics of the design system, the analytics from the Figma component library and feedback from the designers give us the outcome of the new design system. The following are the common themes and outcomes that we have received.
Faster onboarding for new designers
Fewer inconsistencies
Improved discoverability and faster searchability
Less conflict between design and dev
Reflection
Looking back, it has never been an easy journey, especially when there wasn't a design system dedicated. There were small and big challenges along the way. The following were the recurring obstacles that shaped the journey.
Adoption resistance
Constant maintenance and communicating changes across the team
Balance between fast-growing features, delivery timelines, and domain-specific features such as 3D design tools
Ever-growing icons and colours
Not enough resources to maintain or improve the design system
Measuring metrics
Future
These past years, I have learnt that the design system is the product itself, and feedback loops, improvements, and never-ending maintenance are always required.
Better and more complete documentation
Mistake to make a single library for every product — should have established the federated system earlier
More comprehensive colour system
Micro-interaction guidelines
Strongly established governance with design-dev collaboration, processes for design system
Moving forward
Separating 3D specific component elements
Patterns library
Evaluating whether a bespoke design system still suits our purpose
Exploring much more UI kits like shadcn.com for more complete design system including micro-interaction