Thread by @FarukSpeaks

Next up at #Clarity2019: @_dte on Where We Can Go: an exploration of what tools could be like if they treated design systems as the building material: clarityconf.com/session/where-…

@_dte Dan's origin story involved building a robot from a subscription magazine that sent out pieces one at a time, and after everyone had their completed robot the magazine shared pictures of how some people had customized their robot design, which he found really cool. #Clarity2019

@_dte Visualizations are an interesting way to illustrate the compound effects of an instruction: top row, lines are drawn with a linear instruction outward, creating a spiky feel; bottom row they're given a random direction, creating a smoky feel. #Clarity2019

@_dte Dan is recognizing the balance between luck, skill, and privilege that has led him to this stage today. It's a good reminder to dismantle our system of knowing around thinking success==skill alone. It never, ever is just skill. #Clarity2019

@_dte Dan's rallying cry: “Building things for people who build things” — something many of us in the audience here can relate to. (👋🏼) #Clarity2019

@_dte With Facebook, the priorities were speed and shipping, with consistency being a nice bonus. This meant that instead of enforcing, they'd do research; instead of organizers, they'd be anthropologists.

So how to tailor to those needs and still deliver DS tools?
#Clarity2019

@_dte Critically, a design system is about people: how they interact, work together, and experience one another. It's about people collaborating towards a common goal.

It's where tools+people come together: (Design) Systems as Tools.

#Clarity2019

@_dte The burden of some of the work often falls on partners, the people using the tools behind the design system.

Dan wondered: what if the design system itself became the tool? #Clarity2019

@_dte Dan shows the game BaBa Is You, where you have to explicitly change the rules in order to win levels. It's extremely clever and subversive. #Clarity2019 hempuli.com/baba/

@_dte Similar to Baba Is You, “what if your design system could show the impact of your work on a wider thing? The impact you have when you 'change the rules' of the game?” #Clarity2019

@_dte A tool that consciously designs the process over output (alone) can help us identify how the elements are used across large organizations, and more easily flag legal or ethical concerns. #Clarity2019

@_dte “If there's one thing I've learned about building design systems at scale, it's this: Design System are about people.”
— @_dte

#Clarity2019 #YxQuotes #YxDesign

@_dte “The same truth should be applied to the tools that we use. Our tools should be about people, not (just) about the work.” — @_dte

This ties directly into my “Products should be a coach” philosophy of product design. Shameless plug: productmatters.design/how-do-you-inv…

@_dte “I want our tools to be highly collaborative, to encourage the kind of collective co-creation Denise was telling us about yesterday. To put people at the center of all this, allowing everyone to bring their amazing experience to the fore.”
— @_dte #Clarity2019

@_dte “People think that design systems are rock solid and rigid, that you have to obey them and follow the rules, but we have to recognize that's not the case. For one, the DS itself should change over time; everything should evolve and be adaptive.” #Clarity2019

@_dte Live tweets for day two of #Clarity2019 continue below, with @stefsull and @bferrua talking about Designing Standard Systems: