Overview
When OCI was founded — like many new companies or new branches inside large ones — it was a bit of a Wild West. Develop fast, ship a product, and lean on third-party services like Bitbucket to get there. But as the company and the service matured, bringing source code management inside the company helped secure the product, and by extension, secure OCI's customers.
The Opportunity
Third-party services are excellent when you're getting started, but they're built for a general audience. OCI had matured to the point that its reliance on Bitbucket needed to end and source code management needed to live inside the company. The goal was to parody the key features of Bitbucket while adding custom capabilities to expedite source code work specifically for OCI — all while balancing a third-party-feeling experience inside an existing style guide.
Welcoming new services in an existing style
OCI had an established style guide for its cloud software suite, and a new one was on the way that depended on the current one being built correctly. Parodying Bitbucket's functionality meant fitting those features into OCI's navigation, controls, and patterns so they felt intuitive and discoverable for OCI users.
A style guide's shortcoming
The scope was large, so we broke it into more manageable tickets. The first ticket covered the basic SCM functions; the second ticket grouped enhancements that would benefit OCI specifically — including the kind of "blame" experience our developers actually needed.
That's where I hit the conundrum every designer working in a style guide eventually faces. The "Maui" style guide prescribed a code-view window with expanding rows for blame — technically compliant, but not the best experience for the work.
Breaking the style guide for function
I ran the style-guide-compliant version past developers on staff. It was approved on paper, but it wasn't usable enough to win them over from Bitbucket. To drive adoption — and to do right by the user — I decided to break the style guide. That's ultimately where my responsibility lies.
When future users tried the new "blame" experience, it won them over. It felt closer to the tool they were used to, and the new highlight feature — something Bitbucket lacked — was seen as a real workflow improvement.
A win for a maturing corporation
This is another example of UX work making lives better and easier — and saving the company money along the way. I'm an advocate for the end user, but I also want UX to be an advocate for the business. Thoughtful design lowers the cost of doing business and grows revenue.
Moving SCM internally raised security across the company and meaningfully reduced operating cost: 10,000+ internal developers adopted the product, and OCI cut $1.2 million in third-party subscription spend.
