š Articles
From Proposal to Release: Designing Your Design System Workflow
In this article, I outline the importance of establishing clear workflows for design systems to prevent chaos and inefficiency. I emphasise that successful design systems require structured processes that facilitate collaboration across teams, ensuring that contributions are meaningful and aligned with the system's goals. By mapping existing workflows and identifying friction points, teams can create a more effective design system that fosters trust and encourages adoption, ultimately leading to better outcomes.
Context-Based Design Systems, Revisited
TJ revisits the concept of Context-Based Design Systems, emphasising that the real challenge lies in maintaining clarity and intent rather than relying solely on AI. They highlight the importance of context in design workflows, noting that AI cannot replace the foundational work of understanding component purpose. By allowing designers to contribute code and focusing on context, teams can create more effective systems. They also underscore the evolving role of the Context Engineer as a steward, ensuring that design systems are guided by clear intent.
Design Systems Are No Longer Optional
Mandy explores the evolving role of design systems in the context of AI, emphasising that maintaining a strong design system is more important than ever. They highlight the challenges of ownership, governance, and the need for clear guidelines as AI tools become integrated into workflows. By prioritising accurate documentation and establishing a central team to oversee the system, organisations can ensure that they move quickly while maintaining quality and consistency, ultimately guiding their design efforts in the right direction.
The cost of yes: Design systems and the work nobody sees
Guy discusses the complexities of managing design system requests, emphasising the importance of prioritising long-term sustainability over immediate needs. They highlight that while saying "yes" to requests can feel beneficial, it often leads to increased complexity and maintenance burdens. By promoting transparency and educating stakeholders about the true costs associated with their requests, design system teams can foster a healthier relationship and ensure that the system remains reliable and coherent over time.
How to introduce linting for design system hygiene
Declan explores the importance of linting design tokens to maintain consistency and prevent errors within design systems. They highlight common issues that arise when documentation is not updated and advocate for integrating linting as a core part of the workflow. By establishing clear linting rules and processes, teams can enhance collaboration, reduce technical debt, and ensure that design systems remain reliable and effective. Declan emphasises that good documentation and hygiene in design systems benefit both current and future users.
š Interesting Reads
Conway's Law
Donnie discusses the complexities of design systems, emphasising that the real challenge lies in organisational dynamics rather than just components. They argue for a transparent marketplace where teams can contribute their own components, reflecting the true culture of the organisation. By embracing this chaos, rather than imposing strict order, Donnie believes that design systems can evolve more naturally and effectively. The key is to facilitate collaboration and provide metrics around usage and quality to ensure the system remains relevant and valuable.
Iām making a spec for design system documentation
PJ introduces the development of a Design System Documentation Spec, emphasising the need for a structured, machine-readable format to enhance design system documentation. They highlight the challenges of using Markdown for this purpose and advocate for a comprehensive specification that serves both humans and AI tools. PJ outlines their learning journey, the importance of collaboration, and the steps needed to refine and release the spec for public use, inviting contributions and feedback from peers.
š Tutorials
Automating Colour Contrast With Design Tokens | Always Twisted
I outline how to automate colour contrast checks using design tokens, emphasising the importance of accessibility in design systems. I discuss the challenges of maintaining consistent token usage and propose a structured approach to linting design tokens for compliance with WCAG standards. By integrating tools like Style Dictionary and a colour contrast library, I demonstrate how to generate accessible text colour pairs automatically, ensuring that design tokens not only enhance visual consistency but also meet accessibility requirements.
Sponsorship Message
Need help with your work?
No sponsor this week - so I'm sponsoring it - I'm looking for new client work from mid-July onwards. If you're building, refactoring, or maintaining a Design System and need a front-end developer and consultant who actually understands design tokens tooling, component libraries, and the workflows that make everything sing in the same key, let's chat.
I help teams with Design System architecture, Design Token strategy and implementation, and building component libraries that your team will love using. Let's talk about what you're working on.