Ben Callahan

Maturing Design Systems

For the last five to ten years, systematic design and development practices have been growing and growing. It’s no wonder that, once we put a name on this snowball (hello, “design systems”), it only picked up speed. If you manage more than one site, if you support more than one brand, if you want to be more efficient or more consistent or more unified in your digital interface building approach—this is the session for you. We’ll start with a breakdown of design system concepts, reframing how to think about them in a practical and approachable way (The Anatomy of a Design System). - Where design systems live in an organization - The four layers of a design system (concepts) - The three parts of each layer (tangibles) Then we’ll dig into the four major concepts covered by the Design System Maturity Model developed from years of work, interviews, and industry-wide surveys. - The stages of design system maturity - How a design system’s origin story impacts its path through maturity - A framework for maturing in a healthy way - A framework for maintaining stability Join for this info-packed half-hour session!