Design System Components: Go Big, Go Small, or Do ‘em All?

Monday, 5th – 10:00

Design systems are maturing across organizations, as are the component libraries they contain. Atomic buttons, icons and inputs are a solved problem. Now, expectations of design systems are rising: offer bigger and bigger configurable things, empower contribution, and enable autonomous, flexible composition. These are tough challenges that create uncertainty, tensions, and conflict.

During this session, Nathan will share experiences working across design systems as a consultant. Informed by interviews, planning, and leading teams, he’ll explore questions that evolving design systems encounter like:

• How many components are too many?
• What else might we do that’s more valuable than adding yet another component?
• When and how do we incorporate “organisms?” When don’t we?
• How do we foster composition when tools and platforms drive us towards configuration?

Whether you make one or use one, this session will challenge you to reconsider what you want, need, and may actually get from your design system.

Nathan will also give a workshop on Design Systems.