A lean approach to building design systems
summary
A lean process iterates a design system over two years starting from a few Sketch guidelines to a versioned UI kit in Abstract, a synced React component library and a documentation website as single source of truth. Work begins with a production audit and component inventory, prioritizes items with a value vs effort matrix, builds small deliverables (primary/secondary buttons, three sizes, trimmed color palette, main-flow icons from Material), quickly fixes reported bugs, and yields developer adoption and steady proof of value without harming conversion.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (56)
- 0:00Intro
- 1:30What are design systems
- 3:16TVcom
- 4:00The main difference
- 5:08People
- 6:08Lean approach
- 7:17Research
- 8:19Ask
- 8:42Talk
- 9:27Questions
- 9:50Top insights
- 10:06Tools
- 10:33Component Library
- 11:12There is always something
- 11:31Be curious
- 11:46Small things matter
- 12:39Roadmap
- 13:25Matrix
- 16:27Design system mixes
- 16:53Improve visual design
- 17:16Dont guess
- 17:39Audit
- 18:13Design Phase
- 19:18Icons
- 19:53Components
- 20:29Research is easy
- 20:58Typography
- 21:37Icon
- 22:10Validation
- 22:42Testing
- 23:06Giving people control
- 23:40It can be done
- 24:11Communication
- 24:31UIKid
- 25:22UIKid Version
- 26:44Bug fixes
- 27:31Form inputs
- 28:12Higher management
- 28:53Trust
- 29:07Challenges
- 29:55Support
- 31:03Recap
- 31:41Continuous proof of value
- 31:51Frequent feedback
- 32:09Documentation page
- 32:41Biggest takeaway
- 33:26Use case
- 34:47Developer experience
- 35:16The preferred approach
- 35:35The horror design approach
- 36:20What I learned
- 36:47React Components
- 38:00Question
- 38:36Biggest pains
- 39:00It depends
- 39:48You can start slowly
