Tweet

https://twitter.com/799212/status/1596540916852002822

https://twitter.com/799212/status/1602678559369314305

https://twitter.com/799212/status/1483808272192835595

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @danmall

Dan Mall

@danmall

Jan 4

I’m fortunate to receive lots of emails and DMs from people looking for advice or mentorship from me. But 90% of these messages have a major mistake that would have otherwise made me interested.

Here’s the crucial ingredient to getting what you want from someone you admire:

🧵

Many of these messages have this kind of structure:

> Hi Dan, I’m looking to connect with you to learn more about how I can grow as a designer.

or

> Hi Dan, I’m wondering if you’d want to be on my podcast. I’d love to have you on if you’re interested.

What’s missing here?

The thing that bugs me about them is that THERE’S NO ACTUAL QUESTION ASKED. There’s no request. I can infer and assume what they’re looking for, but I assume you know what happens when we assume.

The crucial ingredient to getting what you want is actually asking for it.

Read 15 tweets

Dan Mall

@danmall

Jan 3

What is a #designsystem? You’ve probably heard lots about them. You may have even worked on one, but you still struggle to define it.

Here’s how I talk about #designsystems to anyone who will listen: 🧵

There are many great design system books out there. Let’s see what their authors have to say about design systems:

@craftui

“A design system is a set of connected patterns and shared practices, coherently organized to serve the purposes of a digital product.” — @craftui, Design Systems

Read 15 tweets

Dan Mall

@danmall

Dec 16, 2022

One of the biggest pain points for #designsystem teams is naming (components, patterns, tokens… anything).

Here are my most useful tips for naming design system things (part 1).

🧵

@RFERL

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to help @RFERL with their design system. They had—and still have to this day—this component all over the site. What would you call this? A carousel? A banner? A slider?

Wanna know what they called it?

They called it “Fred.”

Seriously.

Look at the source code. The element is called <div class="fredContent">.

Read 9 tweets

Dan Mall

@danmall

Nov 26, 2022

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.

Read 4 tweets

Dan Mall

@danmall

Nov 25, 2022

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 🧵

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

Dan Mall

@danmall

May 20, 2022

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

Share this page!

Dan Mall

People who liked this thread also liked...

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

More from @danmall

Dan Mall

Dan Mall

Dan Mall

Dan Mall

Dan Mall

Dan Mall

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Send Email!