Brickyard is Podium’s Design System
The affectionately named Brickyard has undergone a transformative journey under my stewardship as the Lead Product Designer on the Podium Design System team. Over 1.5 years, my focus has been on refining and expanding the existing design system to cater to the dynamic needs of a rapidly growing product development organization.
I contributed to the transition from ad-hoc processes and scattered resources to establish a cohesive, community-driven, and centralized design systems practice.
Leaving a Legacy
When I first joined the team, one of the significant challenges we addressed was migrating Podium's designers and developers from the legacy Podium-UI common library to Brickyard, a true design system replete with reusable components and patterns. This transition occurred amidst the backdrop of a high-growth product organization, posing the challenge of fostering awareness and eventual adoption of Brickyard.
To overcome this challenge, we took a strategic approach that included the following:
Create Accountability
Utilizing "UX scorecards" to hold individual teams accountable for adoption, coupled with ensuring access to necessary telemetry for measuring Brickyard adoption.
Community Support
Nurturing the community of builders within the organization to instill confidence, build trust, and foster advocacy for Brickyard.
Critical Component Building
Prioritizing the development of critical components to facilitate the migration from the legacy library.
Build Awareness
Implementing Brickyard inclusion in onboarding for new hires, promotion in all-hands meetings, regular updates across the product development organization, and establishing a dedicated space for Brickyard.
Structuring Support Processes
Early on, understanding the importance of community, I recognized an opportunity to effectively support and nurture the community of builders by structuring support processes. So I created playbooks to streamline responses to incoming questions and requests, ensuring continuity, cohesion, and timely support.
Centralized Documentation
After learning about our documentation challenges, which included decentralized, inconsistent, and sparse guidance, I championed the creation of a centralized documentation site as an opportunity to improve awareness. This resource provided consistency and comprehensive information, including migration instructions, component usage, and implementation guidance, simplifying the user experience for Podium's designers and developers.
The Brickyard Effect
The impact of our efforts is evident in Brickyard’s integral role in the product development process, delivering familiar and consistent experiences while accelerating the pace of product development. The results of our efforts are reflected in Brickyard's adoption and the numbers speak for themselves:
My goal was to elevate Podium's user experience for its primary customers—small local businesses. However, this success wouldn't have materialized without the awareness, accountability, and support of Brickyard's community of builders.