Case Study
Design Systems
Google Workspace Design System
Maintaining Design Consistency: Incremental Updates, Unified Experience
Info
Timeframe: 3 Months
Tools: Figma
Platform: Internal Tool
Challenge
Google Workspace, a suite of productivity tools used by over a billion users globally, faced challenges in maintaining a consistent user experience across its products (e.g., Gmail, Chat, Docs, Slides). To address this, the Workspace Design Systems (WDS) team embarked on a project to unify design components and patterns into a cohesive system. The initiative aimed to improve product cohesion, reduce technical debt, and enable faster innovation by providing standardized design tools for product teams.
Design Process
Over time, inconsistencies had emerged across Google Workspace products due to disparate design approaches. This fragmentation created inefficiencies for product teams and hindered user experience. Without a unified system, designers and developers faced challenges such as:
Lack of standardized components leading to redundant work.
Increased technical and design debt due to uncoordinated updates.
Slower development cycles as teams focused on fixing inconsistencies rather than innovating.
Solution
The WDS team implemented a multi-faceted approach to address these issues:
Auditing Components: Conducted a comprehensive audit of components across Workspace products. The findings were compiled into a Figma file to highlight inconsistencies and identify opportunities for convergence.
Design System Development: Created reusable components in Figma, forming a "sticker sheet" that designers could use across projects. These components were aligned with Google's Material Design principles to ensure scalability and consistency.
Collaboration and Governance: Established cross-functional collaboration with designers, engineers, and product managers across Google Workspace. Weekly meetings with the WDS Council ensured alignment on priorities and progress.
Modernization Efforts: Migrated existing components from an older framework (GM2) to a more modern one (GM3), ensuring compatibility with future updates. This included defining design tokens for global changes and reducing instance-specific adjustments.
Results
The unification of Google Workspace's design systems significantly improved efficiency and user experience. By standardizing components and fostering collaboration, the WDS team enabled product teams to focus on innovation rather than resolving inconsistencies. This initiative not only reduced technical debt but also laid the foundation for scalable growth and adaptability in future projects. The success of this effort highlights the importance of cohesive design systems in delivering world-class user experiences at scale.