Assigned to the Detroit office of VML, my responsibility was to enhance the tools and processes of the entire Experience Design Team throughout the Ford Enterprise account. The reliance on local files in Sketch and InDesign was proving to be inefficient, doubling the design and development hours needed. In response, I initiated a comprehensive transformation of our team's tools and processes, aiming for increased efficiency and the ability to meet expedited timelines. This undertaking involved immersive workshop sessions spanning multiple teams and two key areas: Figma and Confluence. The outcome was remarkable, significantly impacting not only MYCO but also saving hundreds of hours for each pod within the organization.
Director of Experience Design
100+ VML Employees
Figma and Confluence
3 months
MYCO: Model Year Change Over
Over 25+ vehicles, each with their own homepage as well as 3-5 feature pages living on ford.com. Every designer/art director and copywriter is assigned 2-4 vehicles per year.
That's alot of content to redo every year....
Prior to 2023 designers and copywriters worked back and forth in giant InDesign documents to organize their project's content and be able to pass it to authoring.Writers would have to wait several days/week before getting their turn to work on the router then placing on the server for the designer to continue their edits. And there it bounced slowly before finally getting to PI, legal and eventually the client.
Designers worked on local files in Sketch and copy/pasted in the text from the copy docs (routers). This created huge files and massive slow downs. Designers were responsible for placing everything inside their comps, including the writer's copy. Every time a ®, comma, period, word, sentence was edited, the designer would have to copy paste it into the comp from an email or a doc. Then finally export a pdf to send out to the world.
We finally decided to move from InDesign to Confluence. Which is a cloud browser based content management tool for many teams.
Figma is the leading collaborative design tool for building meaningful products.Seamlessly design, prototype, develop, and collect feedback in a single file.
Confluence and Figma both facilitate simultaneous collaboration for more than a dozen users in a single file. This inclusive approach extends to project managers, strategy, BA, allowing them to actively participate, share work directly with clients (rather than relying on cumbersome PDFs), and contribute comments in real-time during meetings. Leveraging these collaborative platforms has proven invaluable, trimming several weeks off the project timeline, alleviating pressure, and enhancing awareness as the product takes shape.
Less of creative time per vehicle using Confluence + Figma
Less of QA time approximately per MYCO in Confluence
More collaboration as not only designers & copywriters, but also PM's, strategy, and BA work together in a file
