Podcast

March 13, 2023
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Chris Strahl

Is a design system a business asset or a technical asset?

Morgane and Chris discuss the idea that many design systems pitch themselves as a technical asset. However, design systems can extend past this notion to offer business value, patterns and ROI.

March 7, 2023
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Evan Lovely

Evan Lovely CTO & Co-Founder of Knapsack: Source of truth should be the user experience

Evan and Chris discuss source of truth and how it is linked most importantly to overall user experience opposed to just design or code.

September 21, 2022
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Eva Morrison

Evan Lovely, Chris Bloom, Jake Love, and Brittany Smart from Knapsack: Hot Takes on the State of Design Systems

Evan Lovely (Head of Product & Engineering), Chris Bloom (Principal Front-End Engineer), Jake Love (Senior Solutions Engineer), and Brittany Smart (Solutions Engineer) join Chris to discuss the state of design systems today. Listen to hot takes on everything from the lesser known elements of successful design systems to the role vulnerability should play in your system.

September 7, 2022
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Eva Morrison

Stephen Gates: What makes a good design leader?

Stephen Gates and Chris discuss the realities of design system leadership, unconventional sources of inspiration, and the impact of design on society.

August 1, 2022
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Ryan Peterson

Vojtech Miksu from Uber: Next-gen tooling for developers

Vojtech Miksu (Software Engineer at Uber) and Evan Lovely (Chief Architect at Knapsack) join Chris to discuss the gap between a frontend developer’s code base and what actually gets shipped, the next-gen tool (Ladle) Vojtech created to address this, and ultimately helping developers get closer to what end users experience.

June 6, 2022
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Ryan Peterson

Meghan Rosatelli and Saejin Choi from Capital One: Navigating design system convergence, adoption, and contribution simultaneously

Meghan Rosatelli and Saejin Choi join Chris to discuss transitioning multiple design systems into one, shifting system consumers’ mindset from working with a local system to working with a global system, and using play to drive excitement and adoption of a design system.

May 16, 2022
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Chris Strahl

Bridging old and new media with News UK’s design system, NewsKit

Nick, Ellis, and Chris discuss how News UK’s design system, NewsKit, united multiple disparate brands in a central source of truth, and how infrastructure management has helped scale design and engineering practices.

May 2, 2022
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Shayna Hodkin

The nuances of design system management

Curious about the fun parts of design systems? Check out this episode of the Design Systems Podcast featuring Davy Fung, co-host of design systems podcast Design System Office Hours, who joined Chris to talk about working creatively within design system constraints, common structures for design systems, and building a Jedi Council of Design System Advocates.

April 18, 2022
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Shayna Hodkin

Una Kravets from Google Chrome: The internet’s dirty secret

Una, Chris Bloom, and Chris Strahl talk about production-level code, the accessibility of Web3, and the new sliced bread of the web. Prepare for Una to blow your mind with how dynamic CSS can be.

April 4, 2022
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Shayna Hodkin

Why design systems should be part of your company’s DNA

Corey and Chris discuss how design systems represent an organization’s lifeblood, the sisyphean parts of design system maintenance, and what stands out about design system culture at Compass.

March 21, 2022
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Shayna Hodkin

Building an accessible, inclusive design system at Adobe

Matt, Veda, and Chris discuss how Matt and Veda have incorporated accessibility and inclusion into one of the world’s most well-known design systems, Spectrum. Matt shares his experience getting accessibility principles into Spectrum on the ground floor, and Veda discusses how inclusion fits into design systems.

March 14, 2022
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Shayna Hodkin

The long evolution of Wayfair's design system

Wayfair, the ubiquitous online retailer, is more than just wayfair.com: the company owns Perigold, Joss & Main, and Birch Lane. Neva, Rogin, and Chris discuss how Wayfair united three disparate design systems into one; the gradual process of building a holistic design system team; achieving cross-functional design system adoption, and the merits of overthinking.

February 7, 2022
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Shayna Hodkin

Mike Bowser from Vista: The past, present, and future of design systems

Mike and Chris discuss design systems at the enterprise level, the history of systems, and UX design at the beginning of the internet.

November 15, 2021
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Shayna Hodkin

Stephen Gates from WW on design methodology, design systems, and building trust

Stephen Gates joined Chris Strahl on the podcast for a long talk about team culture, design systems, and more.

October 29, 2021
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Shayna Hodkin

Josh Cusick from Microsoft defines design utopia

Microsoft’s Josh Cusick and Chris discuss how to convey intent when working with a design system, the importance of buy-in for a successful design system culture, and whether or not your design system will ever be finished.

July 12, 2021
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Shayna Hodkin

Using one design system to manage dozens of products with Intuit's Leonardo De La Rocha

Leonardo De La Rocha and Chris discuss the “federated” design system model, how to connect design systems to business needs, designing friction-free cross-platform experiences, and C-suite awareness of design needs.

July 12, 2021
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Shayna Hodkin

Maya Hampton from REI: Pattern-based thinking on all levels

Maya Hampton, product manager of REI's design system, joined Knapsack CEO Chris Strahl to discuss why design systems need to be flexible, the role of a product manager in a design system, and viewing design systems as products.

June 21, 2021
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Shayna Hodkin

Audrey Tan from Xero: Creating a long-lasting design system vision

Audrey and Chris discuss the vision guiding Xero’s design system team, how co-ownership helps design system teams thrive, the processes she uses for managing a global team, and how the Xero design system team approaches modernization.

June 9, 2021
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Shayna Hodkin

Jess Clark from LinkedIn: Old tech, new tech

Jess Clark and Chris discuss the meaning of design systems and the potential of design systems as a service. What can design systems offer us beyond infrastructure? How can approaching design systems as products, rather than repositories, increase their capabilities?

April 21, 2021
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Shayna Hodkin

Building design system communities with Jehad Affoneh and Scott Mathis

In episode 30 of the Design Systems Podcast, Jehad Affoneh, Scott Mathis, and Chris discuss the advantages of open-source, the role of content in design systems, the pattern-based approach to building apps, and similarities between music and tokens.

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