Linda Lane, BFA, MSIM

I'd argue that design system adoption is going through the typical cycle of novel thought to accepted practice to braindead, box-checking obligation. And this is coming from someone who considers adoption measurement invaluable... There's a lot of detail and qualifications to adoption measurement. Ignoring them turns a valuable health marker into a quota. In our latest episode, Davy Fung and I talk all about adoption, our relationship with it and how use the measure in our work. Listen here: https://lnkd.in/gGy2FSSf #designsystems #podcast #adoption

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Today's thought, after several hours spent gathering materials on the value of design systems (again): Too often, we see design systems abandoned or underfunded. While the design system's impact is already admitted, there is a belief that the work on it can just stop without this value to be lost. But here's the kicker: design systems require ONGOING investment. Remember: Abandoning a design system without proper resources is like expecting your main product to thrive on its own. PS: Suggestions for articles, talks, or other materials on the subject are very much appreciated!

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A great design system goes beyond matching code with design - it should be an easy-to-follow playbook for everyone. eBay shows us how: - Simple guides anyone can understand - Smart organization that makes sense - Real examples that show how to use it https://playbook.ebay.com/ #DesignSystem #UXDesign #ProductDesign #DigitalPlaybook #TechDesign #eBay #DesignThinking #UX #DesignProcess #ProductDevelopment

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There's still a lot of magical thinking around how the value of design should be obvious to the business and why can't they get that? I totally understand our frustration; I'm tired of selling design in every job to every stakeholder and leader over and over for the last decade-plus. But as Erika says, why isn't anyone putting on their critical thinking hat and thinking about the problem as a designer? What are their goals? What outcomes do they want to see? What are their motivations? What are their pain points? Being a designer does not end with the wireframe, or the interview, or the synthesis. If you're not designing the business' experience with the design org, then you risk becoming an org that is nothing but outputs, or totally ignored. The work -- the praxis -- of design means you're always designing. The praxis of research is you're always researching. It's not us v them, it's just *us*. Get out of your ivory tower and do the damn work of building better experiences.

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Design Systems folks — when was the last time you shipped something that really felt impactful? Design Systems is in a quandary right now: somehow both a necessary part of building UI, and recognized as "not delivering value." DS teams were heavily impacted by layoffs, and as Noelle Lansford said in her great article recently (link in thread): > The teams I spoke with emphasized that there was a significant deficit between what the design system team advertised and what was delivered. However, perhaps the more concerning point they made was: Even if all of the success criteria was met, when it came to downsizing, the design system appeared redundant at best. Yikes. How can we know design systems are a powerful tool for delivering consistency, velocity, and efficiency, and also know that we’re not delivering on that promise? And forget "impact as business value" for a second — doesn’t it just feel good when someone uses your work and turns to you and says, wow, that made my work so much easier, thank you. The reality for a lot of DS practitioners is more like grinding for weeks on a component that maybe one team half-heartedly used – incorrectly? Or writing thousands of words of documentation that nobody looks at. I don't think we're "not shipping impactful work" because we're collectively bad at our jobs, or because design systems don't actually help teams move faster. I think we're focused on the wrong things.

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Only one-third of CEOs could detail what their CDO oversaw at the company. In other words, 66% of CEOs couldn’t say what their CDO actually did, or how that success should be measured. No wonder only 10% of CEOs reported that a senior designer played a meaningful role in the company’s strategy. And only 17% of design leaders thought they were in the right position to give a company their full value. McKinsey concludes that 90% of companies aren’t using design talent to their full potential. https://lnkd.in/ePHAS4S3

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Have you thought about the physical accessibility of your digital designs? Getting physical controls right is really hard, and industrial designers spend a lot of time learning about how to use data as a starting point for making design decisions. As we create digital designs that we interact with using our bodies, it's going to become important for digital designers to understand physical ergonomics too.

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We will find a pattern where concepts of Small, Medium, Large are shared across components of different Categories. For instance, a Medium button (defined by height) will need a partnership with a text-input field of equal height, so they may be paired together horizontally in the UI. In this sense, the idea of Medium is shared.

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// The Work of the Next Generation of Designers and Anthropologists // Arvind Satyanarayan frames the challenges for the next generation of designers /and/ anthropologists. "Determining whether the /agency/ GenAI displays will enhance or diminish the human capacity for culture will be the work of the next generation of designers and anthropologists. We have attempted to delineate the kind of collaborative effort this work will entail, and detail a program of design research related to issues of accountability ..." "How should models be trained to value cultural diversity or avoid recurring patterns of oppression? How do human–computer interactions within the context window of a particular chat or project relate to broader sociocultural contexts in which people act?" "Addressing such enormous questions will advance fundamental science, technical art, and moral imagination; applying the framework of /distributed agency/ to human interaction with GenAI models will make them tractable." https://lnkd.in/gtxqYJuy https://lnkd.in/gydMj-q8

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A new Studio Quick Fact is out. This article explores recent research investigating the elements that allow people to enter into a state where they're completely absorbed in what they're doing, to the point where everything else fades away (aka a flow state). Is mastery required? Is it intense critical thinking? Read on to find out!

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#Accessibility is often where the future already happened. All of the discussions of #AI art using text prompts reminds me that what they are attempting is the inversion of AltText image description. Using text to hold the meaning and emotion of visual imagery. What AltText shows is that language is not great at holding subtleties and tones of art. That’s because language isn’t good at such details. The book Language Versus Reality is good on why this is a problem. This modern inversion of the problem has not fixed the core linguistic problem and cannot fix it.

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"We need a business executive who can bring deisgn into the discussion" is the issue... until CEOs and recruiters start saying "We need a DESIGN EXECUTIVE who understands our business challenges." Additionally, design leaders need to learn to deliver results at every board meeting.

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I couldn’t agree more with this post via John Cutler. My thoughts: 💖 Finding the sweet spot on value also often requires qualitative insights and the data isn’t always available. That’s why it’s important to hire research experts to support innovation, marketing, design, product, engineering and strategy activities, building capability in the org’s systems so these disciplines can do their jobs effectively. 🚸 Key issue for orgs is that data can have gaps, be unreliable, be skewed or biased, and not all strategies, innovation or sustainable growth can be generated via crowdsourcing or via existing data. It is essential to create space and a wide lens on exploratory research as well as insight generation. Expert researchers know how to plan and execute research effectively, as well as strategising research for insight generation. 🧭 Great research generates sticky insights to guide business and product strategy as well as the collection of meaningful data downstream - effectively it is a loop. 👩🏽Tacit data, ethnographic information, customer jobs to be done, contextual data, co-design, participatory and observational research/testing to name a few approaches useful and always better when moderated by skilled researchers who know how to ask great questions, probe, observe and extract/identify bias in findings. As well as convert to insights. 👵🏾👨🏼👧🏿👬🧑‍🤝‍🧑🦽👩‍🦯🦮🤰 💙 Research integrity is key as is identifying gaps. Businesses cannot do this in two hours of research training or by taking advice from people who have completed a day long certification. Skilled experts are needed. 📊 Analytics and 3rd party services can help a great deal however these tools are only useful if a) the data is reliable b) the data is meaningful to key moments c) people know how to interpret this data and d) businesses pay attention to it and provide the correct data stewardship. cc Holly Cole

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More UX and Product leaders need to hear Diana DeMarco Brown (she/her)'s wisdom. Diana is a pioneer in the UX field who takes a thoughtful and nuanced approach to assessing the current state of the tech industry. In our recent conversation, Diana shared many insights, including: - How to evaluate a company's culture during the hiring process - Why private equity ownership can result in design divestment - How Product and UX leaders can effectively influence business decisions - Why we don't need to panic with the rise of AI, but we need to think critically and prioritize regulation during this early stage Link to our full conversation: https://lnkd.in/eemDimVb

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RTFP: Rewrite the f_____ prompt. I’m borrowing the (crude) tone from the original acronym, RTFM, just to remind myself of the state of the tech after seeing a glowing post about using Claude computer control for a brief experiment…and an agonized commenter responding about using it for a genuine problem and failing after a significant amount of time trying to get the prompts “just right” to solve the rest of it (and the new issues it created). If RTFP is the advice you get when you’re having trouble getting what you want out of an AI interface…it’s not you. It’s a reflection of how unstructured and experimental it is now. It’s not the magic box that can solve your problems as easily as it appears to solve a (non-critical) demo. It’s worth tinkering with it if you don’t get what you need immediately, if only to clarify your own thinking about what you need…but keep it focused, timebox it, and be prepared to fall back to what works for solving your problems.

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Great writeup on the value design can bring to product organisations irrespective of technoöogical shifts such as AI.

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Although the post starts with a focus on docs, Lynn Hao's excellent writeup is mostly about how to communicate and support product designers using a design system. Operating at scale is hard, forcing you to pick your battles and operate flexibly to enable others to succeed. Thanks for sharing your practices, Lynn Hao! https://lnkd.in/esT7ZcuJ

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I’ve always loved the quote, ‘Don’t design for designers, design for people.’ Thoughtful, intentional design in systems, products, and communication tools can truly define something as a success or failure. This Fast Company article gives a great perspective on how design impacts real-world crises like Hurricane Milton or the Maui fires last year. Prioritizing human needs, behaviors, and limitations (no matter the medium) leads to creative solutions that are not only efficient but adaptable and functional for the people using them. ❤️ #HurricaneMilton #IntentionalDesign #TrafficEngineering

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