Unqork
A design system for the no-code revolution.
Overview
Unqork is a visual, no-code platform that helps large enterprises build complex custom software. After four years of exponential growth, the startup — now a $2 billion tech unicorn — brought in Free Association to co-create a comprehensive design system to unify and govern all dimensions of the platform at scale, eliminating one-off solutions, updates, disjointed user experiences, and technical debt. In addition to supporting the design system rollout, we’ve recently been partnering with teams across Unqork to optimize key areas of the platform experience.
Services
- Product Leadership
- Strategic Planning
- Project Management
- Information Architecture
- User Experience Design
- UI & Visual Design
- Brand Systems & Guidelines
- Technical Strategy
Our goal was to create a robust, flexible system of UI building blocks that could dramatically increase the impact, efficiency and velocity of internal design and engineering teams tasked with shaping the future of the platform.
We collaborated with teams across the platform to plan, design and implement a robust product design system that would meet the needs of a rapidly-growing platform and organization.
Two-Tiered Design System
We architected a two-tiered design system that houses global brand standards and elements alongside local component libraries that give product teams the flexibility and autonomy to extend the system to application-specific use cases.
Design & Development Parity
To ensure complete alignment between design and development, we created a robust Figma library in parallel with a corresponding React component library. As a result, Unqork is able to more efficiently release new features and improve the overall consistency of the platform.
Centralized Platform
We created a centralized internal platform to house all documentation, usage guidelines, design principles, and resources. Live embedded Figma designs and coded components via Storybook automate content updates and ensure an always up-to-date view.
Rollout & Launch
Through the course of our work, we also helped shape new internal processes and capabilities, ensuring teams were set up for success by streamlining design tooling, conducting onboarding sessions, and defining best practices.
“Free Association has set a new standard for third-party partners. We’re so grateful for their intellect, craft, authenticity and magic.”
Given the depth and complexity of the platform, we built a family of application-specific component libraries that would give different teams the flexibility and autonomy to extend and adapt the system while still maintaining consistency.
The new design system provided an opportunity to rebuild and streamline core facets and functionality of the platform from the ground-up, including Workspaces, Workflow, Module Editor, and Component Configuration.
