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Design Systems, Sprint Weeks and other UX Snake Oils(medium.com)

over 4 years ago from Christian Beck, Executive Design Partner

  • Tim Kjær LangeTim Kjær Lange, over 4 years ago

    A Design System won't matter too much if you're working for an agency or on a product that is being built by a small team, but Design Systems are key for products that are being built by large organisations. A large organisation will have multiple concurrent feature projects, with no Design System in place these features will introduce new Components and these Components will be engineered, as time goes by the front-end code will be a jumble of duplicate Components and feature development becomes slower and slower. Then one day some clever front-end engineer comes along and decides to refactor the front-end code base, this endeavour takes a full month and development grinds to a halt. This could've been prevented if the organisation had a Design System that was shared by Design and Engineering. Designers who work in large organisation should have a mindset were they consider the feature they work on and the product as a whole – the Design System should be a forcing mechanism to ensure that designers never forget that they're working on not only a feature, but also on a larger system.

    1 point
    • Christian Beck, over 4 years ago

      I think that in terms of the total number of companies, there are more smaller teams teams than larger teams. Meanwhile, large teams have the resources to dominate the discourse on design systems. My point was set against that backdrop. Not an attack on their overal utility but pointing out that, if you happen to be one of the other thousands of designers not working at large enterprises, it’s reasonable to question the value of a system.

      1 point
      • Tim Kjær LangeTim Kjær Lange, over 4 years ago

        Definitely, the Design System is a means to an end. I think you're right that large companies have a louder voice in the community and if small scrappy teams starts copying e.g. AirBnb's way of working it will definitely lead in overhead and longer time-to-market.

        0 points