Hayley Hughes is a Design Director for Nike’s design systems. She formerly established the IBM Design Language, operationalized the Airbnb DLS, and led an evolution of Shopify’s Polaris Design System.
Hayley’s work has been featured in Women Who Design, Under Consideration, and “26 Innovations by 26 Women.” She is a certified IBM Enterprise Design Thinking Leader and contributed to the Adobe + Idean e-book, "Hack the Design System."
Her philosophy is grounded in an idea she describes as system stewardship: the integrative practice of building systems from a deep understanding of human behavior, community, and culture. She shared her scaffolded model for a “Design System of Human Needs” around the world in 12 different countries and participated in webinars with Adobe, Invision, and Monotype.
Outside of design systems, Hayley works on Design Operations and helps organizations transform their cultures from solely feature + product focused to people + context focused by scaling inclusive practices.
Past Talks
8 October 2020
As you grow your product teams, how do you avoid reinventing the wheel and ensuring the design function can operate as efficiently as possible.
Moderated by Nadia Udalova, join the conversation, share your insights and probe the speakers on the elements of their talks that left you wanting more.
7 October 2020
When you’re creating global products with hundreds of designers working in many locations around the world, maintaining brand unity with a design language system is a Herculean challenge. Yet with today’s consumers, size is no excuse. All companies, from small start-ups to enormous global organizations, are expected to offer the same seamless and coherent brand experiences.
In this session, learn how to remove the barriers to creativity and unlock innovation in your organisation by inspiring unity, not uniformity, with your design language system.
24 June 2020