UIengineering Weekly – 24/2018

This is a summary of interesting articles I found and read this week.
I share them on Twitter with the #UIengineering hashtag in case you want to follow along during the week.

Introducing Spectrum: How Adobe Is Building a Design System at Scale

The Adobe Spectrum Design Team shares their story of creating a design system for their products.
This post is an introduction and focuses on the challenges and impact this has at large scale.

Your Brain on Front-End Development

Chris Coyer writes about the various concerns we face when creating a user interface.
He takes apart the design of a complex component and goes into many details of implementing it with CSS.

When I look at a design […], my front-end brain starts triggering all sorts of things I know will be related to the task.

Creating Themeable Design Systems

Brad Frost tackles the topic of bringing together different-looking brands and experiences in one design system.
The article has practical advice and examples and is a good introduction for how to approach themeing in general.

The danger and pitfalls of Uniformity in Design Systems

David Aragonés describes the considerations regarding consistency and flexibility when applying a design system.
He contrasts the benefits and trade-offs of reuse and finding the right solution for the individual cases:

Although said design systems can provide a solution to difficulties and problems, it’s essential that we analyze in depth the application of the solution to each problem […]