INFLUENCING AN INCLUSIVE CULTURE THROUGH DESIGN SYSTEMS
AT STANLEY BLACK & DECKER
Accessibility | Design Systems | UX Design | Strategy | Leadership | Operational Transformation
Organization: Stanley Black & Decker
What: Web Migration, Content Management, and Experience Design
Role: Global UX Manager
Goal: Execute research, strategy, and design system creation for a global content-management system migration of brand websites
Stakeholders Involved: Global Market Executives & VPs, Marketing, Branding, Engineering, IT, eCommerce, 3rd Party Vendors
OVERVIEW
Hired within the Global Customer Experience division to support a re-platform and redesign initiative for all Stanley Black & Decker (SBD) brand websites, I led a UX team of seven researchers, designers, and engineers in developing the strategy, principles, user interface, and design system for the content ecosystem. This ambitious program was intended to establish a global-first approach and provide equitable access internally to content management and marketing tools across markets. Enhancing user experience and content flexibility while reducing development costs and turnaround times.
THE CONSTRAINT: UX MATURITY
Stanley Black & Decker’s Global Consumer Experience (gCX) division had no prior UX standards, practices, or frameworks in place. As the incoming manager of a freshly formed team this lack of UX maturity created a steep starting point; the team not only needed to upskill in UX practices but also required extensive internal alignment to create a cohesive vision and strategy.
PART 1: START LOCALLY
SOMETIMES A LITTLE TRIBALISM CAN BE A GOOD THING
The first step was to cultivate a collaborative, empowered, and skill-rich team. This involved establishing and documenting foundational UX principles, practices, and processes that would be critical for our team to reach success; creating a framework that served as a training guide, resource, and advocacy tool for the team, and within the division.
Creating a team sense of accountability ensured we held those outside of our team similarly accountable, and at minimum influenced principled practices.
Process illustrations directed our team and collaborators through project and operational phases, providing discrete tasks anticipated from our design team within the workflow.
Standards and process documentation instilled an understanding of our approach for executing projects; a critical learning and expectation management tool for our maturing UX team.
ELEVATING INDIVIDUAL STRENGTHS AND PRIORITIZING NEEDS
Identifying the core skills and growth areas for each team member, I allowed team members to self-identify their interests and take ownership of specific work streams. This balanced team dynamics, encouraging personal growth, while aligning individual goals with project objectives and tasks, enabling effective delegation. With the team empowered to take ownership in their own way, I was able to focus on broader strategy, planning, and advocacy across teams.
Scripting and mapping project timelines made the expectations of individual and collaborative duties clear, creating a sense of autonomy and cohesiveness.
PART 2: TAKING IT TO THE STREETS
GENERATING BUY-IN AND ADOPTION:
To bring UX principles into other areas of the business, we took a proactive approach in building relationships with departments, including e-commerce, brand, IT, data, and product management. Through workshops and co-design sessions, we collaboratively defined our vision and aligned on goals for a seamless user experience. This collaborative engagement allowed us to gain buy-in from various stakeholders, ensuring a smooth rollout of the global UX strategy.
Auditing existing brand sites and working across teams we agreed on core principles, needs, and hoped outcomes on the way to creating a refined library of patterns, structures, and styles that were necessary to the comprehensive design of global websites.
PART 3: Advancing Usability and Accessibility Standards
Advancing Usability and Accessibility Standards
Accessibility was a cornerstone of our UX strategy. We partnered with Essential Accessibility and integrated tools like Hotjar to ensure a robust, data-driven approach to user insights. This phase focused on building a research roadmap and incorporating usability testing into the design process, ensuring our UX designs met a high standard of accessibility and human-centered design.
Shoring up accessibility standards was a major organization-wide initiative I spearheaded. Including recruiting strategic vendor partners to fix the over 300k+ missing alt-tags on all brand product and promo imagery (mitigating the threat of multi-million dollars in legal fees), implementing global accessibility targets, and developing educational programs and campaigns to embed accessible practices as an expectation internally, especially for all design and content teams.
PART 4: Establishing a Global Design System
PUTTING IT ALL IN MOTION
The culmination of our work was the creation and implementation of a cohesive design system. This global framework was developed in collaboration with brand teams and content managers to ensure consistency and scalability across Stanley Black & Decker’s diverse portfolio. We trained localized teams to maintain and adapt the design system, reinforcing our UX principles on a global scale.
FINISHING THE JOB
In January of 2022, due to inflation and budgetary constraints related to the pandemic, our work was cut short by a reduction in force and the Global UX team was laid off, however, what we accomplished in our time together was significant. We in a short period of time transformed Stanley Black & Decker’s UX landscape, moving from a fragmented model to one that, though imperfect, valued collaboration, accessibility, and research, this was manifested through the release of a design system that was based in human-centered principles, meeting both business and user needs. Through dedicated team building, cross-functional collaboration, and a relentless focus on accessibility and usability, we laid the groundwork for a sustainable UX future across the organization.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Advocacy and demonstration of the business value of UX design and research requires consistent effort and alignment with business goals, find the story that connects.
Getting bruised and battered is part of being a design leader, you have to have thick skin as staying true to human-centered principles is a slow and thankless job, expect setbacks.
Cross-functional communication is critical , having design, development, content, and strategy teams involved from the outset ensures shared understanding and minimizes delays.
Prioritize the development of a UX vision, having clearly documented standards and processes was a game-changer as it provided a foundation of for scalable growth, and expectations.
Having an ego is important, but knowing when not to have an ego is even more important for a UX team, and plays a crucial role in helping to keep teams honest, accountable, and engaged.