Design Systems Podcast

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Vidya and Chris discuss pathways to becoming a design systems leader, having a content strategy within your design system, personalization considerations, measuring the success of your design system, linking your design system to a broader design strategy, and more.Guest:Vidya Nayak is Design Director Member & Design Systems at SoFi, former design lead at Moody’s, Disney, Fox Digital (News Corp), and Rodale. Coffee, books, and travel lover. Guitar and pixel adorer. You can find Vidya at nayakvx.com, on Twitter as @nayakvm, and on LinkedIn.Host:Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.Sponsor:Knapsack — Build without rebuilding. Learn more at knapsack.cloud about Knapsack and getting your team to 80% design and code reusability.Links:View the transcript for this episode.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Demian and Chris discuss what design tokens are and why they are a critical part of any design system, getting developers more involved in the design system discipline, an exciting new way to integrate design tokens between design tools and VS Code, and how surfing relates to design tokens.Guest:Demian Borba is a Product Manager on Adobe XD (working on XD since 2015!), UX & Design Thinking advocate, and speaker. You can find Demian on Twitter as @demianborba and on LinkedIn.Host:Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.Sponsor:Knapsack — Build without rebuilding. Learn more at knapsack.cloud about Knapsack and getting your team to 80% design and code reusability.Links:View the transcript for this episode.Learn more about Adobe’s Design System Package (DSP) and XD plugin for VS Code.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Jina and Chris discuss the inception of design tokens and Theo during Jina’s time at Salesforce, the correlation between design systems and community building, shared ownership instead of governance, why “design systems are not a thing,” and more. Guest:Jina Anne is the Founder of Clarity, Creator of design.systems, and Co-Chair at Design Tokens W3C Community Group. You can find Jina at jina.design, on Twitter as @jina, and on LinkedIn.Host:Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.Sponsor:Knapsack — Build without rebuilding. Learn more at knapsack.cloud about Knapsack and getting your team to 80% design and code reusability.Links:View the transcript for this episode.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Rick and Chris discuss deputizing evangelists to drive adoption and reduce fragmentation, contribution models and thinking about the areas to own vs. areas to share ownership vs. areas to give up ownership, using design systems to share innovation across teams, measuring design system efficacy, and more.Guest:Rick Rodriguez is Head of Design Systems at Walmart Labs, an avid runner, hand letterer and superfan of cappuccinos and donut breaks. You can find Rick on Twitter as @rickrodriguez, and on LinkedIn.Host:Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.Sponsor:Knapsack — Build without rebuilding. Learn more at knapsack.cloud about Knapsack and getting your team to 80% design and code reusability.Links:View the transcript for this episode.Check out the Amazing Design People List to discover amazing designers worldwide on this community-led talent base during COVID-19.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Morgane and Chris discuss threading design into the fabric of how business works, capturing a wide range of complexity needs within your design system, moving away from traditional design tools to providing a playground that enables anyone to design with code in the browser, lessons from game development and how they apply to design systems.Guest:Morgane Peng is Design Director at Societe Generale Corporate & Investment Banking, illustrator, speaker, and indie game developer at Koruldia. You can find Morgane at morganepeng.com, on Twitter as @morganepeng, on Medium, and on LinkedIn.Host:Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.Sponsor:Knapsack — Build without rebuilding. Learn more at knapsack.cloud about Knapsack and getting your team to 65%-80% design and code reusability.Links:View the transcript for this episode.View the screenshots Morgane mentioned showing a simple view vs. one with lots of data.Check out Societe Generale on Medium and a couple of new articles on governance at scale and contributing a new component.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Jason Lengstorf and Chris discuss failure, self-doubt, and ultimately finding your way before switching gears and getting into designs systems, communicating the things that make teams want to adopt design systems, and an approach for broadening and deepening your experience with the technologies your system may benefit from.Guest:Jason Lengstorf is a Principal Developer Experience Engineer at Netlify, host of Learn With Jason, and writer. You can find Jason at jason.af, on Twitter as @jlengstorf, and on LinkedIn.Host:Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.Sponsor:Knapsack — Build without rebuilding. Learn more at knapsack.cloud about getting Knapsack for your team.Links:View the transcript for this episode.

Varun Vachar, a Developer Experience Engineer at Chromatic and former Director of Technology at Rangle, discusses the innovative "design graph" and its departure from traditional design systems. He explores how computational design and machine learning can automate UI processes, enhancing creativity and personalization. Varun also touches on chaos testing in design systems and his passion for generative art, illustrating how digital designs can become tangible through 3D printing and pen plotting.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Adam Argyle and Chris venture into “spicy opinion” territory and discuss when design systems are freeing vs. constraining, creating appropriate “offramps” for venturing outside of your design system, why designers ought to be proposing changes to code (aka making pull requests!), and decentralizing the human side of design systems to break down silos and enable innovation and enhancements to spread freely throughout your product teams.Guest:Adam Argyle is a Chrome CSS Developer Advocate at Google, creator of VisBug, co-host of The CSS Podcast, developer, former designer, and RPG enthusiast. You can find Adam at nerdy.dev, on Twitter as @argyleink, and on LinkedIn.Host:Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.Sponsor:Knapsack — The design system platform for ambitious product teams. Learn more at knapsack.cloud about getting Knapsack for your team.Links:View the transcript for this episode.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Stephen Gates (currently at InVision; formerly at Citi and Starwood) and Chris discuss advice for leaders needing to drive adoption and success of their design systems, how to assess and foster trust between design system creators and consumers, treating design systems as infrastructure, and the Amazing Design People List to help designers find work during COVID-19.Guest:Stephen Gates is Head Design Evangelist at InVision, host of The Crazy One podcast, designer, and international keynote speaker. You can find Stephen on Twitter or Instagram as @sdgates and LinkedIn.Host:Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and LinkedIn.Sponsor:Knapsack — The design system platform for ambitious product teams. Learn more at knapsack.cloud about getting Knapsack for your team.Links:View the transcript for this episode.Check out the Amazing Design People List to discover amazing designers worldwide on this community-led talent base during COVID-19.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Mina Markham (currently at Slack, formerly at Hillary For America and IBM) and Chris discuss getting executive buy-in, how to create space to continue advancing your design system, going beyond a shared language by building a shared culture, the story behind the Pantsuit Design System, and Beyoncé, of course. Guest:Mina Markham is Staff Engineer at Slack, design systems advocate, and international speaker. You can find Mina at mina.codes, on Twitter as @MinaMarkham, and on LinkedIn.Host:Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and LinkedIn.Sponsor:Knapsack — the design system platform for ambitious product teams. Learn more at knapsack.cloud about getting Knapsack for your team.Links:View the transcript for this episode.