Plasma design system
Creating and documenting a product design system
This case study aims to chronicle how we created a design system at WeWork. I’ll share insight into our process, product design, the tools we used to create and implement the system, and also how we document and share the system with our team.
Introduction
WeWork creates inspiring shared workspaces, with an emphasis on community. We design and build our own internal digital tools to meet our business needs, and to manage our global network of buildings and members. ‘Plasma’ is a design system created for these internal business tools.
Plasma as a concept was founded by one of our digital creative leads, Nick Stamas. Nick introduced our engineers to the concept of building a system in React JS and Sass, and has since lead the build of the system. I lead its design, creative direction and documentation. I also work with product designer Deena Edwards, who applies Plasma to our products.
Step 1: Design exploration
We started out experimenting with three different internal products the system would be applied to — discovering, establishing and stress testing a style(s) and library of components and patterns. The direction, user interface (UI) and style changed over time, which…
