5 things worth thinking about

(that I read in this book)

Who the heck is Yesenia Perez-Cruz?

But first:

Yesenia Perez-Cruz is a Senior UX Manager at Shopify, leading the Polaris design system team.

Inconsistencies are a symptom 

thing one

• A lack of alignment and communication across teams
• A diluted brand voice
• A disjointed user experience

What do inconsistencies represent?

"A pattern library alone can’t create alignment across multiple product teams that are all working toward their own objectives."

The human aspects of our systems are more complicated than the tooling.

We should strive to support meaningful divergence

thing two

• Are purpose built
• Support a range of expression
• Inspire use

Expressive design systems

Sign me up!

• Unintentional
• Intentional but not necessary
• Intentional and meaningful

Types of divergence

• Brand
• Audience
• Environment

Contexts for variation

Design principles matter

thing three

Like, really.

Our products won’t be aligned if we are all working from different ideas of “quality”.

• Create alignment
• Speed up decision making
• Increase the quality of your team’s output

Well written design principles...

Example: Intercom - Designing conversations, not transactions

Expressive components and the design hierarchy

thing four

(sorry designers)

Basic components

Composite components

Containers

Containers

"Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context—a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan."

Big levers and small dials

thing five

Levers: broad sweeping decisions about how our experiences should feel

Dials: small, detailed choices that enable those feelings

Size

Primarily impacts the speed at which our content is consumed

Density and weight

Should the page feel airy, or compact?

Scale

Scale is used to focus attention.

Combined, our levers describe how we can express a brand.