Design: Bounteous and Gap UX, creative and development teams · Product ownership: Anthea Economides.
Details
At the time, Gap was transitioning to a digital-first approach. This move involved transitioning from an in-house web content development platform to Amplience, a headless content management system. The primary goal was to enhance content management efficiency across its range of brands, including Old Navy, Athleta, Gap, Gap Factory, Banana Republic, and Banana Republic Factory.
company
Gap Inc. / Bounteous
Product Owner
year
2020–2021
Design & production credits
My work: Product ownership, requirements gathering, stakeholder coordination and review of components against business and brand needs.
One system. Six brands.
This project involved transitioning from an in-house web content development platform to Amplience, a headless content management system. The primary focus was to introduce a global design system that governed design standards and improved content management efficiency by decoupling the content creation process from the presentation layer. The content could then be delivered and displayed across various channels and devices, such as websites, mobile apps, and digital signage.
Design: Bounteous and Gap UX, creative and development teams · Product ownership: Anthea Economides.
Three priorities
01
Enhance responsiveness
Previously, producers had to develop unique creative materials for their websites, mobile devices, and email campaigns. The CMS needed to provide a user-friendly experience on all channels, streamlining the creation and publishing process.
02
Empower non-technical users & accelerate workflows
Users without extensive technical knowledge needed to be able to create, edit, and publish content without needing assistance from the IT or development teams.
03
Facilitate content localization, translation, and personalization
The headless content management system would decouple the content from the presentation layer so that it could then be delivered and displayed across various channels and markets.
From silos to shared standards
However, integrating a CMS across brands posed challenges, especially since each brand previously operated independently without a unified approach to design or component functionality. The first challenge was that the creative teams behind the brands needed to envision their designs as modular components within the CMS. Before, each brand had been a silo, with little exchange on modular design or component functionality. This siloed approach was a roadblock to creating a cohesive, efficient component library.
Another challenge was content reusability & innovation. The ability to adapt and repurpose components across the ecosystem was pivotal. Without this flexibility, the brands risked constructing a bulky library of components that looked similar yet performed differently, which would have accrued a hefty amount of technical and design debt.
Design: Bounteous and Gap UX, creative and development teams · Product ownership: Anthea Economides.
A shared design language
To address this, Bounteous proposed a global design system allowing shared components across brands, maintaining brand uniqueness while reducing the component library size and ensuring consistency in user interaction and accessibility.
The wireframes were used to gather business requirements and facilitate collaboration between the UX, business, creative, and development teams across the family of brands. Based on their details, high-fidelity designs were produced and handed over to the development team, enabling components usable by all brands.
Design: Bounteous and Gap UX, creative and development teams · Product ownership: Anthea Economides.
My contribution
As product owner, my role involved aligning business stakeholders within Gap and the Bounteous and Gap creative and development teams to ensure that both the designs and components satisfied business requirements and matched the brand’s expectations within the global design system framework. Some of my responsibilities included conducting interviews with stakeholders, annotating requirements, and supplying documentation and specifications to facilitate the development team’s work on building these components.
Design: Bounteous and Gap UX, creative and development teams · Product ownership: Anthea Economides.
A streamlined system. Greater reach.
54
universal components created, a reduction from ~130 brand-specific components
40%
decrease in asset transfers from brand creative for website publication
+2x
the rapidity with which brand creative can launch new designs
In introducing a global design system, the most significant enhancement was in the efficiency of content creation and the streamlining of creative processes. The adoption of a global design system not only facilitated the management of digital content but also supported Gap’s move towards a more integrated digital ecosystem.
