Three years ago, I noticed our team at Meta was shipping great work, but the rest of the organization had no idea what we actually did. It was time to make our impact visible.
I built Design Hub to house design documentation for Meta’s EIS organization. Here’s how you can use documentation to make design accessible to other teams and organize design operations
Make your design strategy visible
My design strategy at Meta was the Scalar Approach, which organized design’s work across three levels: Scale Up (influencing leadership and policy), Scale Wide (building cross-functional partnerships), and Scale Deep (strengthening team capability and culture). Instead of keeping this in team meetings, Design Hub made the Scalar Approach transparent by documenting it, explaining what each level meant, and how other teams could engage with us at each one.
Within weeks, I heard product managers using our language. Someone would say a project ‘needed to scale wide for cross-functional buy-in’ or ‘should scale up to get executive support.’
Make it comprehensive but scannable
Comprehensive documentation can be overwhelming. Our hub covered products (Airlock, Cloud Portal), processes (research methods, design metrics), activities (design reviews, roadmap planning), and more.
We made our information scannable with summaries, key personas, stakeholders, and core use cases. Product managers could understand how to work with design without scheduling a meeting.
Multiple entry points for different information needs
A VP cared about business impact. An engineer needed technical specifications. They shouldn’t have had to dig through the same content to find what mattered to them.
I organized our hub into clear paths:
Design Initiatives for strategic overviews, Process for step-by-step workflows, Documentation for detailed specs, and Service Offerings for engagement models. These paths interconnected naturally, letting users move from high-level strategy to specific project examples without getting lost.
Spell out your value proposition
Our Service Offerings page defined clear engagement levels:
Limited A for basic UI support, Core for integrated design and research, and Comprehensive for complete product strategy and analytics.
This clarity benefited everyone. Stakeholders such as engineering managers knew exactly what they were getting. We could have honest conversations about scope without overcommitting. Sometimes a light-touch engagement was the right call. Other times, deeper involvement delivered more value.
The shift was internal, too. We stopped saying yes to everything and started speaking about impact.
Show the humans behind the work
Our Team Accomplishments section featured photos, roles, and links to each designer’s specific contributions. It transformed how people saw us, from an abstract service to people with distinct skills and perspectives.
We also documented learning initiatives like Design Muscle sessions and Product Teardowns. Other teams could see that we were invested in our craft, not just executing requests, and were motivated to share insights.
Make your impact impossible to ignore
We documented projects with the problem we solved, our approach, and tangible outcomes—whether that was improved metrics, new strategic directions, or validated product decisions. After six months, the questions changed. Instead of “What does design do?” stakeholders asked, “How can we apply your approach to this new initiative?”
Making this visible to leadership meant they understood our value without us having to advocate for ourselves constantly. I watched executives reference our work in strategy discussions without prompting.
Remove every barrier to working with you
Our hub included quick-access links for common requests, objectives tied to company goals, and clear touchpoints for involving design.
This shifted us from a reactive service provider to a proactive partner in shaping product experiences. Teams looped us in earlier. Decisions were better informed. The collaboration felt natural.”
Audit your design accessibility then start small
Take a hard look at your current state and ask:
- Do stakeholders understand your design strategy?
- Can they figure out how to engage with your team in under five minutes?
- Do they have quick answers to common questions?
- Do they see design as strategic or tactical?
- Can they measure design’s impact?
- Are collaboration paths crystal clear?
Then pick your most significant pain point—unclear services, confusing processes, invisible impact. Start there. Use templates to maintain consistency as you expand.
This isn’t a one-time project. It’s about building visibility and participation into how design operates. Make it easy for others to understand and engage with your work.
Your team is probably having more impact than anyone realizes. Time to make it visible.
References
- Nielsen Norman Group — UX Documentation: Why It Matters
- IDEO — Designing Organizations for Change
- Gartner — Design Leadership and Operating Models
- Accenture — The Business Value of Design
- Figma — Design Systems and Scaling Design Teams
- Harvard Business Review — Why Design Thinking Works