Visual Delighters

Within our software, there had been a need for small “visual delighters” - fairly decent sized (32-78 px) visuals that add as both a decoration and a highlight to important information. However, these visuals had been made quickly and without any guidelines - resulting in teams using them for slightly different use cases each time, and with different styles.

We needed to define the appropriate use cases for these visual delighters (so that they are not used too much or too little), and create style guidelines (so that these visuals felt consistent and matched Epic’s brand).

I did an audit of Epic products for when and where similar visuals were currently being used, and began to generate options for guidelines on when these visuals would be most helpful.

Additionally, I did external research on visual styles of similar “delighters” to give stakeholders options to consider.

I generated a number of visual options using the moodboards created, and organized these by level of detail for stakeholder review.

Meetings with stakeholders focused on trying to land in the best spot for visuals: What visuals called enough attention, but not too much to be distracting or feel different from the surrounding UI in Epic? What best matched Epic’s branding? What did we feel our UXDs could make successfully with little training or visual design experience?
Color choices were finessed based on aesthetic preferences, Epic color schemes, and accessibility - making sure icons met contrast and requirements for colorblind users.

Because of the nuance of these visuals, we determined both written documentation and classes for designers making these visuals were needed.
The written documentation helped teams determine when & why to use these visuals. The classes helped make sure designers were comfortable making them in their new style.