Dan Mall Profile picture
Nov 26 4 tweets 2 min read
I’ve worked with #designsystem teams at companies like Amazon, Netflix, Google, and more. The most common blocker about #designsystems I hear from them is, “I never really looked at it that way.”

My biggest tip for reframing #designsystem work to make it more approachable:

🧵
Do less.

Almost every team I work with tries to make their design system do everything. They stress themselves out, trying to tackle too much and end up accomplishing nothing.

Pick a handful of things, and do them really well.
Many mature #designsystem teams I talk to have one thing in common: they’re REMOVING components from their design system. They’ve realized they can’t support everything, so they’re trimming down to just the things they know they can fully support.
How can you figure out what’s just enough? My Design System Advent Calendar is 24 small tips sent to your inbox that help you understand just enough to make your design system a success.

You have 4 days left to subscribe. Don’t miss out! danmall.com/products/desig…

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More from @danmall

Nov 25
Warren Buffet once famously quipped, “Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.” If improving your #designsystem is one of your goals for 2023, make sure lack of knowledge isn’t one of your blockers.

A new resource for you in this thread 🧵 Phone showing design system...
There are so many resources out there now for learning more about #designsystems! A wealth of public information is great, but it often comes with analysis paralysis. Where do you start? How do you separate the signal from the noise?
I’ve been working on a simple resource to help with this. I’m launching my Design System Advent Calendar today, my own customized lesson plan of 24 valuable and short lessons to help improve your knowledge of #designsystems.
Read 5 tweets
May 20
Many design system teams think their job is to define best practices for the rest of the organization. Excited about being blessed by leadership as the team to enforce these best practices, the team often resorts to their wish list of things they’ve always wanted to have or try:
“Let’s reduce our color palette to just the essentials!”

“Typescript might be a great thing to try.”

“This seems like the right time to define some motion guidelines.”

“We’re finally all switching from spaces to tabs!”
This smells like the classic xkcd comic about Standards: xkcd.com/927/
Read 16 tweets
Oct 20, 2021
Do you love design systems and magic? A thread.🧵
There’s a scene in Harry Potter where he and his friend Ron arrive late to their first class of the year of Advanced Potion Making. Harry tells Prof. Slughorn that they don’t yet have textbooks, so Slughorn sends them into the closet to get books.
There are 2 books left: a brand new one and an old, beat-up used one. Ron and Harry fight over it, and Harry gets stuck with the old one. Two "Advanced Potion Making" books: a new one and
Read 14 tweets
Mar 25, 2019
I have so many thoughts—and so do lots of other people!—about @kschwabable's article for @FastCompany, "John Maeda: 'In reality, design is not that important'": fastcompany.com/90320120/john-….
The article is a summary and commentary on @johnmaeda's "Design in Tech Report": designintech.report. The phrase that has seemed to polarize its audience is in the title: "Design is not that important."
As a designer—one that has spent years trying to be a good designer (whether or not I've succeeded—this hurts my feelings! Who are you to tell me my many-year pursuit isn't important?!
Read 18 tweets
Jun 27, 2018
Reflections from a speaker about doing a new (kind of) talk.

A thread.
Over a year ago, Vitaly from @smashingmag asked me if I’d be game to do a conference talk without slides, something more about showing work in action.
I was immediately excited to do it, as I could immediately think of how I’d do that, since I do that almost daily with my apprentices (v3.danielmall.com/articles/appre…).
Read 16 tweets

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