UIengineering Weekly – 25/2018

This is a summary of interesting articles I found and read this week.
You can follow along during the week on Twitter with the #UIengineering hashtag
and in the UIengineering subreddit.

Design systems

Jeremy Keith stresses the point that a design system encompassed more than a set of components:

Just because you have a collection of design patterns doesn’t mean you have a design system.
A system is a framework. It’s a rulebook. It’s what tells you how those patterns work together.

Developing a design environment

In this article Jules Forrest talks about his learnings from trying to establish an optimal set of processes and tools to design software products.
It covers a designers view of how the tooling (especially Sketch) can be used and could be improved.

When NOT to Use a Design System

While design systems can be tremendously valuable they're not a one-size-fits-all solution.
Bryan Braun lists some cases in which a design system may not be what you really need.

Designers and developers will likely be biased toward building design systems.
It’s fun, visible greenfield work, which solves pain points for their peers.
But at the end of the day, somebody has to make sure it makes business sense.

Design Systems Repo

This website is a frequently updated collection of examples, articles, tools and talks about Design Systems.
It curates a comprehensive list of style guides and pattern libraries, as well as tools and resources.