Nobody wants to hear this, but trying to create and land a design system in an existing enterprise product is, in my experience, an 18 month-ish project.

And this is the crux of the biscuit: little things are included in bigger things which are included in even bigger things which ultimately make a complete UI. Atomic design is a mental model far more than it is a naming convention.

Sharing research on components and patterns in design systems is so important for building trust and adoption - but it’s not easy. Caroline Jarrett Ignacia Orellana and I have written a blog post about why it matters, and how to approach it. #DesignSystems bit.ly/3x1RxmF

Why do most design systems implode? We did some digging and found out, with the help of @bradfrost (author of Atomic Design) 🙅‍♂️ Not all engineers are made for design system work 🛠 Design system developers need custom tools 🐌 Design systems go stale fast 🧵

Organizations make the mistake of managing design systems like apps, not infrastructure 🛣 But design system engineers have unique concerns like accessibility, composability, compatibility, and interoperability that impact multiple apps 🧐

I’m often asked to recommend UK people to give talks on design systems, and I would love to have more names to give who aren’t cis, non disabled, white men. If that’s you and you’re interested in speaking events, please reply or DM me and I’ll add you to my list. RTs welcome 🙏🏻

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Experiencing awe has salubrious side effects, such as reduced stress, increased generosity, and boosted life satisfaction. bit.ly/3DQR0Hf

I tested all 32 updates from Figma’s recent release to see what I should incorporate into Design System Bootcamp (btw enrollment opens next week!). Here are the 10 I’m most excited about! 👇

In 1998, Citibank and The Travelers Insurance Company merged. They hired legendary designer Paula Scher to create a new logo. In their first meeting, on a napkin, Scher drew what became the iconic Citi logo. As Scher got up to leave the room, someone from the Citi team asked,

Great thought for day KURT VONNEGUT: I went out to buy an envelope ~ Oh, my wife says,  well, you're not a poor man, You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because

They need to create a Pulitzer category for headlines just for whoever wrote this.

The best cure for loneliness is not more frequent interaction. It's more meaningful interaction. Many people enjoy solitude. They can spend up to ~75% of their time alone without feeling isolated. What matters most for well-being is the quality of connections, not the quantity.

This crow has allowed itself to be covered in ants Birds engage in a fascinating behavior called anting, where they rub insects, especially ants, on their feathers and skin. This can be done actively by picking up insects and applying them to their body or passively by lying in

as more companies decide to "add AI chat to our application", the same problems show up again and again.

every god-fearing generation of men maintain and uphold The Wire Box, a strategic reserve of technical entropy from which the anonymous will rise up and become the prophesied Chosen Wire in Our Time of Need.

The hot new job at tech companies is leading "storytelling." The term doubled on LinkedIn job posts in the U.S since last year. The WSJ writes: "Compliance technology firm Vanta this month began hiring for a head of storytelling, offering a salary of up to $274,000."

Thoughts: 1. In the future, the probability something is generated entirely by AI will be inversely proportional to its intended lifespan. 2. For conceptually simple artifacts that are intended to have short lifespans, humans will still be involved just at a different level of

pov: your vibecoder friend trying to debug the app built using claude code