Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Empowering Gaming at Scale: How Xbox Builds Powerful, Automated, and Distributed Design Systems with Sketch
Gold
Thursday, September 30, 2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Share the love for this talk
Empowering Gaming at Scale: How Xbox Builds Powerful, Automated, and Distributed Design Systems with Sketch
Speakers: Luca Rager
Link:

Summary

An essential part of creating a Design System is to make distribution and content flow sustainable. When the task is bringing the joy and community of gaming to everyone on the planet, the challenge gets massive! How can DesignOps and Automation become a facilitator for this challenge? Join Senior Software Engineer & Designer Luca Rager from Xbox as he takes us through their innovative take on design systems. Luca will illustrate how Sketch’s flexibility and modern DesignOps automation has allowed Xbox to package, theme and easily distribute component libraries. Furthermore, how their system bridges the gap between the Xbox Design System team and the wider product teams at Xbox.

Key Insights

  • Xbox Design System supports four themes including high contrast to ensure broad accessibility.

  • The component library needed to work across multiple platforms: TV, desktop, and mobile.

  • Theme customization is achieved by swapping foundational Sketch libraries rather than relying on overrides.

  • Every component and foundation (theme file) exists as its own Sketch file to support clarity and easy iteration.

  • Clyde, an internal automated tool, packages components into Sketch libraries and generates design tokens for engineers.

  • The design system team focused on creating easy-to-adopt kits for product designers to reduce complexity and improve uptake.

  • Multidisciplinary team members, including designers with engineering skills, help bridge gaps between disciplines.

  • Accessibility experts are embedded in the design process, enriching documentation and audits within the system.

  • Governance balances flexibility for product teams to propose and customize components with ensuring consistency from the core team.

  • Integration with Microsoft tools like Azure and Teams allows realtime notifications and seamless collaboration around design system updates.

Notable Quotes

"Gaming is for everyone anywhere, and Xbox has evolved way beyond the box under your TV."

"Our mission required us to build something fast, flexible, and scalable across many different product needs."

"A button is just a rectangle with some text, but our magic is in how we theme and customize it using foundations."

"Instead of overrides, we swap out entire theme files to customize components for different product teams."

"We realized the real problem was a people problem, not just tooling complexity."

"Sketch’s open file format allowed us to build custom tooling that shapes the design data to our needs."

"Clyde runs every time there’s a change, generating libraries and tokens to keep everyone up to date."

"Engineers love having individual components in files because it makes implementation much easier."

"Design system adoption exploded when we focused on the needs of everyone who builds, extends, or uses it."

"Accessibility and research are part of our org, not just consultants, which makes a huge difference in quality."

Ask the Rosenbot
Hugh Dubberly
Problems with Problems: Reconsidering the Frame of Designing as Problem-Solving
2019 • Enterprise Community
David Cronin
The GE Design System and Thoughts about Craft at Scale
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Elizabeth Churchill
Exploring Cadence: You, Your Team, and Your Enterprise
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Peter Van Dijck
Hands on AI #3: Claude Code for UX people
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Emily Eagle
Can't Rewind: Radio and Retail
2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Gold
Kit Unger
Theme 2: Discussion
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Jen Cardello
Standardizing Product Merits for Leaders, Designers, and Everyone
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
George Hinchliffe
Delivering Amazing Experiences
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Erin Hoffman-John
This Game is Never Done: Design Leadership Techniques from the Video Game World
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Cara Maritz
The Art of Extrapolation
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Bria Alexander
Opening Remarks Day 1
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Ryan Matthew
Bridging Design and Code: AI-Powered Design System Integration
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Jeff Ephraim Bander
Eye Tracking Gamechanger: Why Smartphone Eye Tracking will Revolutionize Your UX Research
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Changying (Z) Zheng
Navigating Innovation with Integrity
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Candace Myers
Standardizing Design at Scale
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Dana Bishop
2022: The Year UX Demonstrates its Business Impact
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold

More Videos

Jilanna Wilson

"Having cameras on during meetings, even for those in the same room, really helps remote employees feel included."

Jilanna Wilson

Distributed Design Operations Management

October 23, 2019

Ilana Lipsett

"Whoever has been and might continue to be the most negatively impacted absolutely needs to be centered and have their voices at the table."

Ilana Lipsett

Anticipating Risk, Regulating Tech: A Playbook for Ethical Technology Governance

December 10, 2021

Tanya Snook

"We herded all of our unicorns and named them appropriately with clear, meaningful titles."

Tanya Snook

Designing the team experience: Building culture through onboarding

November 4, 2021

Jim Kalbach

"Waging peace with sticky notes is a metaphor for how small design tools can contribute to huge social change."

Jim Kalbach

Peace is waged with sticky notes: Mapping Real-World Experiences

June 14, 2018

Michael Land

"We’re trying to build a design operations role that balances top-down governance with bottom-up community building."

Michael Land

Establishing Design Operations in Government

February 18, 2021

Bilan Hashi

"Awareness of positionality is the first step toward ethical change in research."

Bilan Hashi

The Tension Between Story Collecting and Story Telling in Research

March 10, 2021

Carol Smith

"Data is a function of our history; it reflects priorities, preferences, and prejudices."

Carol Smith

Operationalizing Responsible, Human-Centered AI

June 7, 2023

Nathan Curtis

"When I heard ‘when are you going to be done?’ my answer is it’s never really done if you do it well."

Nathan Curtis Nalini P. Kotamraju Jack Moffett Dawn Ressel

Discussion

June 9, 2016

Jaskiran Kang

"One of my friends told me I was considerably underpaid and I’d never asked for anything, which changed my awareness of self-respect."

Jaskiran Kang

Why Community is Key to Professionalizing Design

October 28, 2022