Kathryn Gonzalez, DoorDash's first designer, shares insight on building a design language from scratch and designing a 3-sided marketplace. Topics include taking smaller steps when selling and scoping infrastructure work, the importance of understanding restaurant workflows, investing in design and infrastructure, embracing chaos in the early days, and future plans after DoorDash.
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Quick takeaways
Selling and scoping smaller, worthwhile changes is crucial for gaining buy-in and allows for experimentation and iteration towards desired outcomes.
Being proactive in identifying and tackling problems, having a strong product sense, and bridging design and engineering are key for driving impactful changes in a growing design team.
Deep dives
Scaling Infrastructure and Design Changes
The importance of selling and scoping infrastructure work is emphasized as an essential step in gaining buy-in from executives. Rather than pitching large-scale changes, it is recommended to focus on smaller, worthwhile changes that are easier to implement. This approach allows for a gradual progression towards the desired outcome and provides space for experimentation and iteration.
Early Days at DoorDash
When Katherine Gonzalez joined DoorDash as the first designer, the company was in its early stages of growth. The design team was not fully developed, and there was a need to figure out the direction and requirements for building the company's products. Despite the chaos, Katherine embraced the opportunity to work on various projects and learn about the product while also improving internal processes for the team's efficiency.
Being a Problem-Solving Designer
As the first designer at DoorDash, Katherine had to be proactive in identifying and tackling problems. She emphasized the importance of having a strong product sense and being involved in the field to understand user challenges. This approach allowed her to take insights from observing users and translate them into product improvements. Katherine's ability to bridge design and engineering helped drive impactful changes.
Building a Design System at DoorDash
DoorDash started investing in a design system to address challenges related to scale and quality. Katherine initially focused on web design, as it was the area that required the most attention due to the complexity of the product. She prioritized creating a minimum viable product (MVP) that included core components and style foundations necessary for executing a rebrand. Over time, the design system expanded to support different platforms and localized systems to address specific needs for different product areas.
In this episode, Kathryn Gonzalez walks us through how she built the DoorDash design language as the first designer and frontend engineer. We talk about what it's like designing for a 3-sided marketplace, how to figure out the right level of craft for your product, and get an inside look at how DoorDash structures their design system.
Kathryn spent almost 7 years at DoorDash and eventually became the Head of Design Infrastructure so this episode is chalk full of wisdom ✨
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