Design Systems Podcast

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.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Chris and Micah discuss creating a singular design system that scales to support a massive app ecosystem, using tokens to align design across disparate products, and transitioning from individual teams working on many products to one company working on a library of products.Guest:Micah Godbolt is a design systems advocate, speaker, trainer, and writer. Micah is a software engineer for Fluent UI at Microsoft and author of Frontend Architecture for Design Systems published by O’Reilly Media. You can find Micah at micahgodbolt.com, on Twitter as @micahgodbolt, 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.LinkedIn post via Jason Blackheart showing the time savings of just one component from Microsoft’s Coherence Design System.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Chris and Ethan discuss the parallels between design systems and responsive web design in terms of the impact on how teams design/develop digital products, creating a shared language and research as a means to build successful design systems, and where design systems are headed in the years to come.Guest:Ethan Marcotte is an independent web designer, writer, and speaker, and the fellow who started that “responsive web design” thing. You can find Ethan at ethanmarcotte.com, on Twitter as @beep and as @RWD, and on LinkedIn.Host:Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter 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.The tweet Ethan mentioned from @kimgoodwin: “I think the #1 architectural mistake I see on software teams is failure to articulate the conceptual data model before building things. What are the meaningful objects, how do they relate, and what can users do with them? It’s a small investment for huge dividends.”The book Chris mentioned: “Design Systems” by Alla Kholmatova

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Chris talks with Brad Frost and Evan Lovely about why code is the real source of truth, how to bring designers and developers together around the code, and the opportunity design systems provide for designers to focus on creative contribution rather than producing more comps.Guests:Brad Frost is a web designer, speaker, writer, consultant, and musician in beautiful Pittsburgh, PA. Author of Atomic Design. You can find Brad on Twitter and LinkedIn.Evan Lovely is co-founder and CTO of Knapsack, crafter of design systems, outdoorsman, and all-round nice guy. You can find Evan on Twitter and LinkedIn.Host:Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter 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 Brad’s book, Atomic Design, which introduces a methodology for thinking of our UIs as thoughtful hierarchies, discusses the qualities of effective pattern libraries, and showcases techniques to transform your team's design and development workflow.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Chris and Jeremy Keith discuss imbuing teams with a shared sense of ownership of their design system, creating design systems able to address unforeseen scenarios, design ops as an essential part of an effective design system, and more.Guest:Jeremy Keith is an Irish web developer working with @Clearleft, playing music with @SalterCane, creator of @Huffduffer. You can find Jeremy on Twitter and LinkedIn.Host:Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter and LinkedIn.Links:Episode transcript → Google DriveProgressing The Web → Jeremy Keith via MediumProgressive Enhancement: What It Is, And How To Use It? → Sam Dwyer via Smashing Magazine

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Chris and Charles Hall talk about the impact of accessibility, how to build more accessible products, and the role design systems play in creating accessible outcomes.Guest:Charles Hall is a Senior UX Architect at MRM and an Invited Expert of the W3C Accessibility Guidelines Working Group. You can find Charles on Twitter and LinkedIn.Host:Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter and LinkedIn.Links:View the full transcript here