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What To Expect When You’re Expecting A Design System

Design systems have grown in popularity in recent years. It’s easy to see the benefits. A design system serves as the one source of truth for designers, project managers, and clients. For engineers, they provide reusable code. But deciding to embark on a design system is like choosing to complete an Ironman triathlon. The decision is only the beginning of the journey. In this talk, we’ll go through the next steps after deciding to embark on the design system journey. I’ve been through the process three times on long-term projects for three different clients. From underestimating technical debt to miscommunication of our goals politically, I’ve stumbled into many pitfalls and learned hard lessons from them. Whether you’re a designer, engineer, or project manager, we’ll go through how to avoid these pitfalls and get your design system to the finish line. We’ll also go through how to make your design system easy for engineers to consume into their code. Regardless of if they are building a traditional site, an app, or even an email, everyone can consume the same design system. If done properly, the engineering team can worry more about code and less about design. Finally, we’ll go through a live design system to show why all that hard work is worth it!