Improving Documentation to Enhance Collaboration and Efficiency
The Challenge: No Documentation, No Structure, No Process
When I arrived at France.tv, there was no structured documentation for design. This created major inefficiencies and misalignment between design, development, and other transverse teams. The lack of a clear system led to:
- Developers not knowing where to find information—leading to delays and misinterpretations.
- Figma files constantly changing—making it difficult to track what was final and ready for development.
- Design System components evolving without documentation—causing inconsistencies across platforms.
- No feature use cases documented—resulting in unclear implementation guidelines and repeated discussions.
This lack of structured documentation directly impacted collaboration, making handoffs chaotic, PI planning inefficient, and causing frequent back-and-forths between teams.
The Solution: Implementing a Documentation System and Version Control
To address these challenges, I led the effort to establish a structured documentation system, ensuring that design outputs were clear, consistent, and accessible to all teams.
Key Initiatives Introduced:
- Documentation Embedded in Figma → I implemented a system of documentation within Figma files, ensuring that:
- All design decisions, annotations, and explanations were available within the design itself.
- Pages were structured so that developers could quickly find what was final and ready for development.
- Version control methods were introduced to track approved pages and prevent confusion.
- Centralized Workflows in Confluence → I collaborated with other teams to define and document:
- Workflows for design handoff → Ensuring all teams followed the same structured approach.
- Feature use cases → Documenting intended behaviors, edge cases, and dependencies to guide development.
- Component evolution tracking → Ensuring Design System updates were clearly communicated across teams.
- Cross-Team Standardization → By working closely with development and product teams, we defined clear documentation practices that improved communication and removed ambiguity from handoffs.
The Impact: Faster Reviews, Smoother Handoffs, and Aligned PI Planning
By introducing structured documentation and version control, we achieved significant improvements:
- Faster design reviews and handoffs → Developers no longer had to ask where to find final designs.
- Reduced inconsistencies across platforms → The Design System became more structured and transparent.
- PI Planning became more efficient → Teams had a centralized reference to align on scope and execution.
- Eliminated confusion → With clear documentation, teams could work more independently, reducing unnecessary back-and-forths.
This initiative transformed the way design collaborated with other teams, making France.tv’s design-to-development workflow more structured, scalable, and efficient.
