12. Ethan Marcotte: Design systems and the evolution of how we work

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Chris and Ethan discuss the parallels between design systems and responsive web design in terms of the impact on how teams design/develop digital products, creating a shared language and research as a means to build successful design systems, and where design systems are headed in the years to come.

Guest:

Ethan Marcotte is an independent web designer, writer, and speaker, and the fellow who started that “responsive web design” thing. You can find Ethan at ethanmarcotte.com, on Twitter as @beep and as @RWD, and on LinkedIn.

Host:

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Sponsor:

Knapsack — The design system platform for ambitious product teams. Learn more at knapsack.cloud about getting Knapsack for your team.

Links:

View the transcript for this episode.

The tweet Ethan mentioned from @kimgoodwin: “I think the #1 architectural mistake I see on software teams is failure to articulate the conceptual data model before building things. What are the meaningful objects, how do they relate, and what can users do with them? It’s a small investment for huge dividends.”

The book Chris mentioned: “Design Systems” by Alla Kholmatova