Addition is a leading developer of Apps for the Shopify platform, this includes their flagship product the very popular Australia Post shipping app.

Working closely with the remote developer team I was tasked with an overhaul of the UI/UX across the Addition app family, this included a design system which could be used for current and future app development. The overhaul also included new branding and a fresh marketing website. Illustrations provided by the talented Jason Solo.

Research and planning

As a team we conducted a number of activities during inception to help define the product and the brand:

  • Competitor Analysis
  • Component Audit
  • User Flows

Goals

  • The brand needed to be fun and positive, standing out form the more corporate competitors.
  • The design needed to be flexible and comprehensive
  • Clear and easily digestible
  • Need to develop a remote workflow to sync design for developers https://storybook.js.org and Invision DSM.

The Design System

The design system style needed to be clear and digestible with a view to use across a myriad of Shopify apps in the future. To start we chose to use Invision, Invision DSM for documentation and storybook.js.org for housing interactive components.

Condition Builder

One of the first tasks was to assist in prototyping a rather complex rule builder for the Postcode Shipping Extension. This would allow users to create very in depth conditions and rule groups which could be applied to shipping zones.

Addition Website

Along with the product work Addition was also in need of branding and a landing page. I designed Addition’s responsive website and worked alongside the talented Jason Solo (https://jasonsolo.com) helping to art direct a series of illustrations which become an integral part of the Addition brand.

Outcome

After myself and the team made significant headway with our custom design system a decision was made to pivot to the Shopify offering https://polaris.shopify.com.

The Polaris design system had become increasingly more robust and presented significant savings in ongoing maintenance and development for a small team. As well as the benefits of presenting Shopify users with a familiar interface to what they may have used in their other Shopify App experiences.