Dear (none)Designer,

Welcome back to the fifty-sixth Design at Scale™ Newsletter – where we explore innovation and how design sparks real change in large organisations and agencies.

Recently, most of our updates have focused on product design development. We've also discussed the design system and its role in shaping organisations through automation. This month's update will reflect on how automation empowers product teams and helps designers like us scale design efforts across the organisation.

The starting point is to identify what and where automation is needed. Fortunately, creativity remains with people; once the brand is developed, we translate it into a tokenised design system.

A design system, whether central or supporting, creates transparency between design and development teams.

This is where product teams can excel. By organising work and deliveries through an automated design system using tokens, brand integration through themes and modes becomes streamlined.

At this stage, designers no longer need to manually create design variations. Instead, these variations can be achieved in production, where designers work closely with customers and conduct A/B testing on products or services.

Organising the design system with versioned branches enables teams to test changes easily and observe their impact on products or landing pages.

Through automation, teams can not only conduct AB tests but also establish validated outcomes that can later be merged into the main branch.

The maturity of test branches is well documented, making it easy to deprecate ineffective tests. This process ensures only successful designs are broadly deployed across digital assets.

Does this mean more design testing? Not necessarily. Different stakeholders may believe design creates new or fewer appealing visuals, which will still be thoroughly tested and aimed at achieving satisfaction and increased company revenue.

Automation introduces a new dimension to design operations, where tests reveal adaptive behaviours and reflect the brand's or organisation's evolution.

Not all designers use automation for testing or research. Several plugins or methods can automate tasks such as image creation, iconography, and pattern design, all of which support product design development.

With automation expanding, organisations should remember that more design work does not always mean better results. More designs can mean more files, administration, communication, and decision-making.

Automation can help teams achieve higher design quality, but true improvement comes with the maturity of the design team and the organisation as a whole.

For more information, please visit Design at Scale™ – GRID Magazine, where you can find additional relevant articles that explore high-performing teams, self-organising teams of 001, teams of 010, and teams of 100 that deliver the value proposition within a product-led environment.