UI design becomes increasingly important for products and services. Influencing their users' expierence. UX itself determines the value of digital offerings and is their key differentiator. But "historically grown" incoherent interfaces deteriorate value and brand of products and services. This talk is about design systems, that help to avoid (or overcome) design dept and to enable scaling UX across platforms, products and devices. Modularity and standardisation of repeatedly used aspects helps speeding up processes and increasing business value. Design systems help making user experience tangible to teams and brand values actionable.

1. DESIGN SYSTEMS
FLUXIBLE, TORONTO
SEPTEMBER 21, 2017
@BENNOLOEWENBERG

2. @BennoLoewenberg
BUTTON
even “simple” things
can become complicated

3. DangerDANGERDangerDanger
Positive GoodPositivepositive
Source: Richard Saunders
This Not this

4. Source: Dominic McPhee

5. Source: David Roessli
website investors shop mobile app

6. DIVERSE CLUTTER
Source: open device lab Helsinki
Products, Platforms, Devices

7. “HISTORICALLY GROWN”
@BennoLoewenberg
Code, Tech, Design, Org

8. UX & DESIGN DEBT
– Lots of people and tools involved
– Little-to-no testing (technical and UX)
– Minimal-to-no documentation or specification
– Disparate components across all lines of business
@BennoLoewenberg

9. COSTLY CHAOS
– Time
– Focus
– Brand
- Money
– Engagement
– Value and quality
– Customer satisfaction
@BennoLoewenberg

10. @BennoLoewenberg
UI-ELEMENTS DETERMINE
IF & HOW FUNCTIONS CAN BE USED

11. EU SHOWER TAP
@BennoLoewenberg
any amount of water
at any temperature
can be chosen …

12. US/CA SHOWER FAUCET
@BennoLoewenberg
… easier to use,
but limited set of choices
(just a bit of hot water
connot be selected)

13. MULTI-SCREEN & OMNI-CHANNEL
UI design becomes increasingly important
for products and services.
UX determines the value of digital offerings
and is their key differentiator .
@BennoLoewenberg

14. GOALS
+ Design debt reduction (cohesive brand & UX)
+ More focus on UX & specialties (no redundancies)
+ Speeding up the processes (design, handover, code)
+ Increasing business value (maintainability, scalability)
@BennoLoewenberg

15. Alta, Ant, Apex, Axiom,
Backpack, Binary, Blueprint, Boundless, Build,
Canvas, Carbon, Chameleon, Cirrus, Clarity, Cosmos,
DressCode, Fabric, Feelix, Fiori, Fleet, Fluent, Garden,
Gel, Glue, Gravity, Grommet, Harmony, Honeycomb,
Kotti, Lightning, Material, Mind, Nachos, Northstar,
Nova, Opattern, Origami, PatternFly, Photon, Plasma,
Polaris, Predix, Primer, Purple, Rizzo, Scooter, Show-
Car, Solar, Solid, SolidWork, Spark, Spectrum, Stacks,
ingWorx, Uniform, Unity, Quik, Vanilla …
@BennoLoewenberg
DESIGN SYSTEMS

16. @BennoLoewenberg
DEFINITION
OF A DESIGN SYSTEM

17. DE-TERMINATION
Design System ≠ Style Guide
Design System ≠ Pattern Library
Design System ≠ System Design
@BennoLoewenberg
read: does NOT equal

18. Source: Nathan Curtis (commented)

19. INTERPLAY
+ Blueprint for baseline UI and interaction patterns
+ Rules defining the interplay of technological
and visual components for consistent UX
+ Codify a system to encourage re-use
across products for a cohesive UX
Source: Emily Maxie

20. FACILITATION
+ Standardisation of basics frees up to focus on
e. g. research, inspiration for new concepts,
handoff process, holistic view on features
and their impact to the system.
+ Structure for the foundation of all products
and product versions, without requiring
a lot of efford each time.
@BennoLoewenberg

21. ANATOMY
OF MODULAR DESIGN
@BennoLoewenberg

22. Source: Hidde de Vries (commented)
Design system

23. INSTEAD OF FIXED LAYOUTS …
@BennoLoewenberg

24. … FLEXIBLY USABLE ELEMENTS
@BennoLoewenberg

25. @BennoLoewenberg
ADAPTABILITY
Designing for modules and their interplay in
different screens, not static pages.
Design for change of products, platforms
and user-related affordances.

26. INTERRELATED INDEPENDENT PARTS
@BennoLoewenberg (aft. Diana Mounter)
Element Component Page layout Interaction model

27. DESIGN TOKENS
@BennoLoewenberg (aft. David Roessli)
NO hard coded values

28. @BennoLoewenberg (aft. Sophia Voychehovski Prater)
RESPONSIVE
Teaser boxSearch results gridLanding page

29. @BennoLoewenberg (aft. styltil.es)
THEMABLE
LOGO LOGOLOGO
Partner SiteProduct BProduct A

30. @BennoLoewenberg
COMPOSITION
OF A DESIGN SYSTEM

31. SOME
RESOURCES
@BennoLoewenberg
STYLE GUIDE &
PATTERN LIB
MANY “DESIGN SYSTEMS”

32. Source: Jeremy Keith

33. @BennoLoewenberg
most
important
HOW TO USEHOW TO USE HOW IT LOOKS
& SOUNDS
MADE TO USE

34. @BennoLoewenberg
most
important
HOW TO USEGUIDELINES STYLE &
PATTERNS
DES & DEV
RESOURCES

35. BUILDING BLOCKS (STYLE GUIDE)
Color Pallettes Typographic Scales Grid Definitions Icons & Assets
UI PATTERNS (LIBRARY)
Elements Components Modules Templates
RULES (GUIDELINES)
Design Principles Implementation Guidelines Editorial Guidelines
@BennoLoewenberg (aft. UXpin)

36. @BennoLoewenberg (aft. Dominic McPhee)
STYLE GUIDE
PATTERN LIBRARY
Design Language Making it real
PRINCIPLES
DOCUMENTATION
LIVING STYLEGUIDE
UI & UX KITS
major
success
factor
GOVERNANCE

37. @BennoLoewenberg
EXAMPLES
OF DESIGN SYSTEMS

38. @BennoLoewenberg
HOW IT LOOKS

39. STYLEGUIDE
Source: Atlassian Design

40. STYLEGUIDE
Source: Atlassian Design

41. PATTERN LIBRARY
Source: IBM Carbon

42. PATTERN LIBRARY
Source: IBM Carbon

43. ANIMATION GUIDELINES
Source: Google Material Design

44. Source: Google Material Design
ANIMATION GUIDELINES

45. HOW TO USE
@BennoLoewenberg
HOW TO USE

46. DESIGN PRINCIPLES
Source: Apple Human Interface Guidelines (commented)

47. DESIGN PRINCIPLES
Source: Apple Human Interface Guidelines (commented)

48. Source: SAP Fiori
UX GUIDELINES

49. Source: SAP Fiori
UX GUIDELINES

50. Source: Shopify Polaris
CONTENT GUIDELINES

51. Source: Shopify Polaris
CONTENT GUIDELINES

52. @BennoLoewenberg
MADE TO USE

53. LIVING STYLEGUIDE
Source: Salesforce Lightning

54. LIVING STYLEGUIDE
Source: Salesforce Lightning

55. UI KITS
Source: Material Design Themer – Sketch Library

56. PROTOTYPING KITS
Source: SAP Fiori – Axure Widgets

57. Source: Facebook Design – Sound Files
MEDIA ASSET KITS

58. @BennoLoewenberg
CREATING
A DESIGN SYSTEM

59. BIG PICTURE
+ Establish a baseline framework
+ Care for company-wide awareness of it and its use
+ Institute a global design and development tool set
+ Implement a “single source of truth” across all LOBs
+ Constanly review and maintain the design system
@BennoLoewenberg

60. Source: Nathan Curtis
DEFINED WORKFLOW

61. INITIATION
1. Element audit
2. User research and features determination
3. Object-repository identification
4. Minimum viable design system
5. Pilot project (reference design showcase)
@BennoLoewenberg

62. AUDIT & REPOSITORY
Source: Design System Worksheet – Nathan Curtis

63. LITTLE STEPS
Start small
core elements & assets everyone can understand & use
Make it usable
tokenize design options & showcase pages & elements
Use it
prioratize it, conduct design clinics, demos & audits
to foster design & development convergence
Source: Nathan Curtis

64. @BennoLoewenberg
ASPECTS
OF A DESIGN SYSTEM

65. PRODUCT
It is NOT a simple side project !
A design system is a full-blown product
serving other software products.
It significantly influences the quality of the products,
that are built with it and therefore is a success factor
@BennoLoewenberg

66. SUCCESS FACTORS
A design system needs strategy and resources
as every “regular” product.
For it’s successful realisation many participants
need to contribute to it.
Designers and developers will keep supporting it ,
only if they have ownership of the design system.
@BennoLoewenberg

67. NEVER DONE
It is NOT a one-off !
To keep a design system alive, relevant,
it constantly needs to be maintained .
The bigger it grows, the shorter the cycles need to be
for checking its affordances, quality and updating it .
@BennoLoewenberg

68. @BennoLoewenberg (aft. Ken Skistim)
BALANCE
Flexibility Consistency
Design System
Create everthing
from scratch
Only use what
comes in-the-box

69. @BennoLoewenberg (aft. Firefox Photon)
BALANCE
Similarity
PlatformProduct
Familiarity
0
Design System
Bad Usability
No Brand

70. SCALING UX
Design Systems are a way to make UX tangible
to teams and to make brand values actionable .
@BennoLoewenberg

71. BENNOLOEWENBERG
LINKEDIN / XING / TWITTER
@
Design Sprint