Design Philosophy of Complex Infrastructure Systems
Part of 1 of 2
The CloudNatix application is build upon the foundation of our advanced design system.
Overview
At CloudNatix, we’ve utilized design systems from the beginning of our product. They allow us to make infrastructure management easier for our customers. A well-designed UI is at the core of empowering our users as they manage complex clusters and workloads. We’re proud of the work the team and has done to create a design system for our company. While our industry has referred to them by other names (style guides and design guidelines) over time, they all share a common root—a systematic approach to design. Systems thinking steps back from a local solution to a problem to enact a larger, global approach to the challenge. Design systems take a similar approach. Leading design for CloudNatix, a fast-moving startup in the infrastructure space, requires innovation. To stay ahead of the curve requires time-saving and effective solutions. That is why our team uses our design system to empower our customers with best-in-class approaches.
Challenges and Our Solution
Design systems have challenges that can be accounted for if correctly addressed. Sometimes, they may limit your solutions if you aren’t flexible. Creating great design requires dynamic and creative thinking. Relying upon pre-existing solutions doesn’t always match existing needs. One must carefully navigate any possible limitations imposed by one’s design system. The easiest solution to this challenge is considering one’s design system as a living document. We love coming up with new solutions to tough UI challenges. As new challenges are solved, one’s design system must be amended to include those solutions.
Our team at Cloudinnatix is fully distributed and remote. We have team members in multiple time zones. We use our design system to overcome those challenges. By codifying our design rules and having a well-established set of React design components, we overcome the challenges of working remotely. An essential component of our design system is great documentation. This allows team members to have a single source of truth to answer questions. Our design team is always happy to provide support for our designs. The design system also provides an efficient means to solve challenges. When a front-end engineer has questions about how a component works, our design system documentation is there. We come in and offer any additional support which is needed. This allows our distributed team to work at lightning speed.
Continued in Part Two
Next week in part two of this article we will continue to explore some of the other design system challenges and how we have solved those challenges here at CloudNatix. Additionally, we will dive deeply into the benefits of design systems, and how they make our user interface easy for infrastructure professionals to use.
Learn more
Interested in learning more about how CloudNatix can power your infrastructure?