Design System Office Hours

We had such good traction on one of our first episodes, we decided to bring on another friend of the program, Donnie D'Amato to talk about design technologists, where they should sit in the org, and how we can use them as designers to be our best helping hand.

It's a design system emergency! Our updates are no longer behind a somewhat blocking dialog in Figma. Davy and PJ had to jump on to talk about how this may help or not receive and adopt new system changes.

Davy and PJ talk about the importance of standing up rituals, much like our product design partners, including, how might design system teams handle crits and office hours. How might a designer working at a Facebook leverage a feed, or a internal Facebook group, to share updates.

We made it to our 2 year birthday and 50 episodes! We reflect in Davy's shift into back into IC at Meta, and PJ's shift from IC to Manager most recently at Pinterest, and how the roles differed for us in design systems.

Davy and PJ talk about how to get into your first DS job, the answer being things to know OTHER than building components. On the second half of the pod, we flip to how to get into DS as a discipline as a product designer.

As we approach 2 years, and 50 episodes, we recap this year and dive back into how AI changed some of our thinking this year, as well as what we would like to see out of the design systems practice in 2024. Episode Transcripts

One theme that has been our mind working in large mega design teams, is how our product design teams handle outside, external POV, vs historical cannon. Davy and PJ discuss this, weaved in with how we like to evaluate potential solutions for our systems. Episode Transcripts

With convos of relying on external services such as design system docs sites, Figma plugins, or analytics, we talk about our experience working in large teams with funding to build our own, vs utilizing third party services that can simply get you up and running immediately. Episode Transcript

Davy and PJ talk a little more in depth about support and the dangers of being a purely reactive design system team. How do you handle requests, and how to operate the program during times of duress. Episode Transcripts

Listener question: DS team of one, and how to keep afloat and keep the program going. We touch on what you might want to focus on, and getting help as soon as you can so you can scale. Episode Transcripts

We are back in your lives with a normal 1:1 with Davy and PJ about design system complexities, and how you might want to consider a system with less tokens, variants, and what it's like for Davy to manage 149 components on web alone. Episode Transcripts

We have a friend of the program, Cintia Romero from Pinterest to talk about her work leading the accessibility design and education programs that has been now consumed by hundreds of designers. You can view the Pinterest docs site at:https://gestalt.pinterest.systems/

Recorded with @disco_lu a few months ago, Davy and Luis go rapid-fire on various design system hiring, component-building philosophies, and training. See below for timestamps. (1:25): How Davy got started in DS (6:00): Package my narrative as DS designer (7:00): How to posture yourself to obtain your ideal position (8:34): How to utilize existing job postings internally mentioning DS to get into your ideal position (11:43): Davy’s way to cope with current layoffs (13:05): Shift to more community in DS in the last few years (14:05): How do we open the door for greater collaboration vs governance (15:34): Merging with another team, how do we navigate (17:04): How do you deal with change and keep working moving along (18:16): How do you operationalize the merging of teams, files, ceremonies (20:44): Where does design ops and product management intersect (21:55): How do we deprioritize the pixels and prioritize planning (26:10): Refactoring to infinity when not tied to a specific timeline (29:05): Clear business objective around brand updates (29:45): Sometimes even with apps like gmail, it takes a while to roll out updates (30:44): Uber components that can do anything, is this the right method for most (32:44): Design and engineering parity (35:54): Separating components to be distinct use cases so you can see what you’re getting. (36:55): Thinking tactically like an engineer (37:40): File Hygiene (38:28): Training and education and how to use your system as intended (40:15): Watching people is the best way to learn (41:22): Regular open office hours for any role (41:51): Telling people what you’re working on and what’s coming (43:12): Writing posts to talk about your work (44:40): Collecting resources and learning together (45:38): Doing a demo and going first to show best practice. Lead the way. (47:23): Working an understanding how a specific component use case, doing a live design session. (48:23): Systemizing training vs having 1:1s. (49:00): Whether you need a design system

Happy 40th episode birthday. We talk about moving fast vs designing and building with intentionality, and naturally the convo led morphed into a half episode about ways of partnering with product designers, and how we work on our systems at Meta and Pinterest. Episode Transcripts

With DS being table stakes on lots of product design teams, and even job postings, we talk about whether you need one, or whether your efforts should be scaled elsewhere. What are you really getting yourself into when you start this journey.. Episode Transcripts

This was a special LIVE RECORDING at The Future of Design Systems conference hosted by @IntoDSConf. Friend of the program @rominadesigner takes over as host. We talk about what hard skills are important to have (building components), and the novel idea of interviewing specifically for systems thinking.

Davy comes back from Config 2023, pondering life in and outside of the file, and some rapid fire QA with Davy and PJ. (01:25) Config 2023 IRL recap. (22:10) IntoDS, Future of Design Systems talk QA. Episode Transcripts Bonus link: Leading through Uncertainty @halli

One of Davy's favorite parts of being an IC is being able to still build components, and chase Figma's quest for excellence. Davy and PJ talk about the approach their teams take for building and maintaining design components, alignment with code source of truth, and staying away from uber components. ⁠Episode Transcripts⁠

We’ve been following Masato’s project, designsystem.careers for a while now, and given the nature of the design job economy, wanted to pick his brain on how we can better interview design system designers and engineers. ⁠Episode Transcripts⁠

As design system maintainers, we have the unique role of being deeply entrenched in our own product roadmaps. How can we find opportunity areas and advocate for what we think is best for our consumers? Can we even achieve this within a given time frame. Davy PM and PJ talk about how this has worked at Meta and Pinterest. ⁠Episode Transcripts⁠