Blog

Recently, a mentee asked me to describe the variety of challenges I faced as a design system architect, or basicaly "what exactly do you do?". It's a question I often hear, and it always takes me back to my own journey. As someone who started as a frontend developer and evolved into a design systems architect, I can say that the path is rarely linear—it's more of a holistic evolution, encompassing a wide range of responsibilities and skills.

When it comes to setting up a development environment, everyone has their own preferences and tools. Recently, I embarked on a quest to refine my setup, and it turned out to be quite an enlightening journey. I sought advice from different sources, including fellow developers and AI assistants like ChatGPT. Here''s a summary of what I found and how I set up my current development environment.

In the digital age, effective collaboration is the backbone of any successful project. Whether you're an in-house team member or an external consultant, integrating your workflow with the company's systems and protocols is not just beneficial—it's essential. Today, I dive into a common yet often overlooked aspect of project collaboration: using a company-specific email with your existing GitHub account. This seemingly small step can significantly streamline communication and project tracking, ensuring that your commits are signed correctly and that notifications reach you through the appropriate channels.

In the ever-evolving landscape of design systems, the shift from a purely technical focus to a more people-oriented approach has become increasingly apparent. This transformation, driven by the need to bridge the gap between various specialists - designers, developers, product managers, and business strategists - has led to a more holistic view of design systems. This article delves into the journey of a design system specialist, the importance of measuring design systems, and the strategies for analyzing past production costs and projecting future workloads. It further explores the role of people in boosting design systems and the use of data in managing stakeholders.

Design systems play a crucial role in ensuring consistency and efficiency in product development. They provide a centralized repository of components, guidelines, and best practices that can be reused across projects. However, creating and maintaining a design system is not a one-person job and requires collaboration from multiple teams, including product development teams. One challenge in this process is how to effectively involve product teams in the contribution of components and updates to the design system.

Design systems are an essential aspect of any company or organization, and it is the responsibility of design system practitioners to understand and maintain them. One crucial aspect of this is versioning, which ensures that changes are tracked, documented, and communicated properly. It also helps guarantee that the design system remains consistent and up-to-date with the latest trends and technological advancements. In this article, we will discuss best practices for versioning design systems.