Design Systems with Dan Mall - My thoughts
After going through the Design System course from Dan Mall, I have mixed feelings.
I agree that he articulates the fundamental concepts of a Design System in a very clear and concise way.
But when he moves on to building it and workflows, I feel he explains what works for him and his team (if he has one) best. He moves away from facts and definitions and describes a process that works for him.
I think his concepts, such as pilots and workflow ideas, need to be taken with a pinch of salt, especially if they want to be applied to companies with an async and remote structure.
Why do I say this?
Based on my experience in companies with such a format, even with all their employees going the extra mile to communicate and overcome the async remote nature of the organization, the communication flow is still smaller and slower than in companies with a more traditional format.
This is not a problem if the company understands it, accepts it, and embraces it.
But the processes that Dan Mall outlines, relies on a communication level and speed difficult to achieve for async companies.
That being said, I think there is some core concept, especially on his pilot's idea, that can be translated into async companies. And I believe that we are already doing it.
Little by little, we have been incorporating a new UI that was born in a specific part of the product and that we all consider should be the future direction. And instead of completely overhauling the product, we have been spreading and expanding this UI through each new project that we’ve tackled. But we are still far from a fully-fledged design system. We have been nearly copying and pasting what we needed from one file to the other rather than standardizing and creating new components when needed.
There are some other elements from this course that I think are important to highlight:
We need all the design system elements (UI file, Reference page, Coded components…) to make a design system truly efficient. If any of these elements is missing is like having a stool without a leg.
Naming and communication need to be easy, direct, and clear. Files need to have simple consistent names and the same instructions should be communicated to all the people involved in the design system creation and use.
The structures needed to create a successful design system is similar to the structure required for any other product part. Treating your design system as a subproduct is the only way to successfully build one.
Measuring the success of your design system is vital and shouldn’t be overlooked since it will give us a clear performance picture and a guide towards the next steps.
Overall, the course, s a good explanation of what a design system is, how it works, and the presentation of an idea that we can mold and transform to fit into our ways of working.