We talk a lot about how product and engineering teams use Shortcut but we know it takes a village to bring a product to the finish line. In this new series we'll take a peek into how other teams at a software company can use Shortcut.
This post puts the spotlight on designers and creative teams! At software companies, designers work cross-functionally, whether they focus on product or visual design. Designers are critical in making sure the products experience is intuitive and the brand visually appealing. I sat down with our design team to hear how they like to use Shortcut to design Shortcut :) Here's a quick intro to our wonderful design team:
The design team works across two Story Workflows:
Async Communication in Stories
Whether they're working with the product team on design iterations or helping to fix a Bug with engineers having design iterations, details, and comments in relevant Stories makes it great for async communication. It also makes it really easy for other members on the team to jump in and help out.
Prioritization with Iterations
Having Iterations has made async communication with Product much easier and smoother. Kieron says the ability to know exactly what the squad needs to work on helps him pick up work that needs to be done right away. Or if he's sped through all the design work in the current iteration he can look forward an Iteration or two to get ahead.
One of the challenges as a designer is getting the proper context in order to deliver a design that hits all the notes the requester is asking for. I'm sure designers often feel like they have to be mind readers! Al's proactive solution was to create a couple of different Story Templates to help prompt requester provide better context when requesting creative assets or illustrations or projects. Here's an example of the Design Brief Template:
Andrew and the design team are kicking off a neat project- creating a Shortcut Design System, in Shortcut! The System will be a a living, funded product with a roadmap & backlog, serving all product ecosystems which will cover Style guides, Visual Language, Pattern Libraries, Voice & Tone, Branding Guidelines, Accessibility, Animation & Interaction across all platforms; web, mobile, iOS, Android.
The team is implementing a Design System to scale the team, address Tech/design debt, Increase ownership and knowledge sharing, reduce implementation decisions, reduce time and waste, and more. We'll share more from the design team as the Design System initiative moves forward!
In this first phase the team is tackling:
Want to see what the Shortcut design team is up to? Check them out on Dribbble!
Have a question for the Shortcut design team? Leave a comment below or join the Slack Community to get in touch directly!