Río Design System
Automation Anywhere’s revamped design system for browser apps and Windows desktop widgets.
Role
Lead Visual Designer
Project Lead
Responsibilities
Design
Prototyping
Timeline
2 quarters
Context
Automation Anywhere offers Robotic Process Automation solutions to a broad range of enterprise companies. In 2019, I was hired to lead their visual language and design system efforts.
Working within the Design Ops team, I lead a visual redesign of our core cloud products and the build out of the Río Design System. Not only did it help us design more cohesively, but it also allowed us to address accessibility issues in order to successfully complete Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates for customers who requested them.
Start with visual foundations and guidelines
I translated the existing corporate brand and website guide into visual foundations that addressed the needs of our technical and business users while still fitting in with the rest of our digital properties. For color guidelines, close attention was paid to accessibility and density on a variety of monitor resolutions.
For typography, I recommended tying to our brand for headlines. But, we also took into account performance and default native system fonts for the rest.
A robust icon library was key for a technical product, but things had gotten out of hand. In addition to icon design guidelines, I provided a clear perspective on when to use icons and when not to.
Finally, a point of view on shape helped turn our product into a more friendly, approachable visual experience.
Applying the visual language
Throughout the process, the new visual language was applied across key web apps, Windows widgets, and mobile screens to ensure we were headed in the right direction. We used the Microsoft Desirability Toolkit to test visual appeal with users in order to refine the final look.
Planning the updates
Once approved, I created a list of components to work on and drafted road map. I then worked with our VP of Design, product and engineering to implement the new guidelines and create new components.
Results
The Río Design System was key to modernizing our interface and satisfying accessibility requests from top customers. It provided designers, product managers and engineers with a clear design language and components to be able to quickly build new features in order to migrate customers to our new cloud product.