UI | Federal Reserve – Meghan Lazier

ABOUT

In 2016, I joined Federal Reserve Board as the first design hire on an in-house product team within the Division of Monetary Affairs for the US Government's central bank. Now a team of three designers and three developers, we work to improve how economists interact with and share research, policy and data.

CHALLENGE

I was asked to create the first style guide and pattern library for the Division of Monetary Affairs. Our team had already launched multiple digital products internally, and there was a need to streamline our designs and process.

ROLE

I was the only designer on this project. My colleague Cathy Gurski worked with me as the front-end developer.

PRODUCT

I kicked off the project by doing visual research. I reviewed style guides from other federal agencies, including CFPB, USPTO and the US Web Design System, and companies in the private sector.

The biggest challenge was understanding how to name and organize our design assets and patterns. The language of atoms, molecules and organisms from Brad Frost's Atomic Design Methodology was a place to start, but the terms felt unnatural and foreign to our team. Even the US Web Design System names like design tokens and utilities were not immediately understood by our team. We ultimately settled on organizing our main content into a section for design elements, which includes our brand guidelines, and a section for patterns and interactions.

I kicked off the project by doing visual research. I reviewed style guides from other federal agencies, including CFPB, USPTO and the US Web Design System, and companies in the private sector.

The biggest challenge was understanding how to name and organize our design assets and patterns. The language of atoms, molecules and organisms from Brad Frost's Atomic Design Methodology was a place to start, but the terms felt unnatural and foreign to our team. Even the US Web Design System names like design tokens and utilities were not immediately understood by our team. We ultimately settled on organizing our main content into a section for design elements, which includes our brand guidelines, and a section for patterns and interactions.

I kicked off the project by doing visual research. I reviewed style guides from other federal agencies, including CFPB, USPTO and the US Web Design System, and companies in the private sector.

The biggest challenge was understanding how to name and organize our design assets and patterns. The language of atoms, molecules and organisms from Brad Frost's Atomic Design Methodology was a place to start, but the terms felt unnatural and foreign to our team. Even the US Web Design System names like design tokens and utilities were not immediately understood by our team. We ultimately settled on organizing our main content into a section for design elements, which includes our brand guidelines, and a section for patterns and interactions.

IMPACT

Although our design guidelines are not publicly available, internally, they have made a big impact. On our team, the guidelines have improved communication between designers and developers.

When other design teams within the Fed heard about our work, we were asked to share our guidelines and process at an internal design meetup. There is an active discussion to create a style guide for the entire Board in the near future.

Although our design guidelines are not publicly available, internally, they have made a big impact. On our team, the guidelines have improved communication between designers and developers.

When other design teams within the Fed heard about our work, we were asked to share our guidelines and process at an internal design meetup. There is an active discussion to create a style guide for the entire Board in the near future.