Speaking

Wisdom from the Trees

Design system work is as much about the space between the components as it is about the components themselves. In this keynote presentation I share takeaways from my experience hosting The Question, a weekly collaborative learning conversation where the design system community answers a very specific question and dives into the data together.

This presentation weaves the narrative of the coastal redwoods together with the power of language and classic systems thinking. The result is an edifying realization of the impact a system can have when we remember that we need each other to move our industry forward in a sustainable way.

The Anatomy of a Design System

Most organizations don't have a clearly articulated, shared understanding of the definition of a design system. Oftentimes, even those closest to the design system haven't aligned on this. Armed with this recognition, I spent many months examining and comparing design systems across industries and company sizes. The end result is The Anatomy of a Design System.

This model breaks down the layers of a system as well as the parts that make up each layer. Having a clear explanation, along with easy to understand visuals, helps teams find that missing shared understanding and encourages the necessary conversations to find their own design system anatomy.

A Maturity Model for Design Systems

For the last five to ten years, systematic design and development practices have been growing and growing. It’s no wonder that, once we put a name on this snowball (hello, design systems), it only picked up speed. If you manage more than one site, if you support more than one brand, if you want to be more efficient or more consistent or more unified in your product building approach—this presentation is for you.

We'll dig into the four major concepts covered by my Design System Maturity Model, developed from years of interviews and industry-wide surveys.

• The four stages of design system maturity
• How a design system's origin story impacts its path through maturity
• A framework for maturing in a healthy way
• A framework for maintaining stability

Design System Culture

The technical and creative aspects of a design system are undoubtedly important, but they are only two parts of a three-part puzzle. The third piece? Culture. Organizational culture, the subculture of a design system team, and (most importantly) the relationship between the two is vital to the success or failure of any systematic program.

In this presentation, I share a model for understanding organizational culture, offer tools for evaluating your own culture, and expose how this knowledge can dramatically impact the approach you take with your design system.

If you've ever felt like you're swimming against the current, this is the presentation for you.

Maturing Design Systems

This workshop is designed to expand your team's thinking about what systems are and how to nurture their healthy maturity inside the unique culture of your organization. We'll dive deep into what design systems are, we'll discuss the four stages of design system maturity, and we'll wrap up with a detailed explanation of the impact an organization's culture has on a design system.

Each section has activities and breakout discussions intended to help attendees make the material practical in their specific context.