On Theme: Design Systems in Depth

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Guy Segal joins Elyse to unpack the messy, complicated world of… people. Guy shares practical strategies from his experience at Thomson Reuters, including the powerful "pre-mortem" exercise he used to rebuild trust and alignment for the design system. They get vulnerable and unpack why (as cliche as it sounds!) genuine listening, storytelling, learning to give and receive feedback, and actively engaging with product teams, is so much more impactful than relying solely on processes or artifacts. Plus, Guy shares why he hated it at first when product teams started using the name of the design system.

Links & References

• Guy Segal on LinkedIn
• Guy's talk at BeMore Festival on feedback, Working with Humans: Resolving Conflicts with Empathy
• Guy's talk Mastering the Painless Design Critique
• Guy on the Knapsack Design Systems Podcast
• Guy's podcast, Design Downtime, celebrating the joys of living a balanced creative life outside the pixels and wireframes
• Brad Frost's article Choosing a Name for your Design System

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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Ben Callahan joins Elyse for a fun conversation on creating impact with design systems. Ben shares insights from his consulting experience, discussing common pitfalls like organizations expecting a design system without adequately supporting their teams. They break down the "Four Quadrants of Design System Impact" framework, which breaks down tactical versus strategic work, helping teams avoid pitfalls like endless component creation. Plus, hear Ben’s predictions for the future of design systems

Links & References

• Ben Callahan on LinkedIn
• The Question
• Redwoods, Ben's community supporting design system practitioners
• Ben's post on The Four Quadrants and Why you’re NOT seeing Holistic Impact from your Design System
• Ben's overview of our episode of The Question
• Cam Worboy's Broken Promises of Design Systems talk at Config 2024 (and the worst screen made with DS components)
• Kotter's Leading Change book

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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Marcela Rodriguez Joos shares the story behind the One UPS project, a massive effort to modernize and unify UPS’ brand and digital experiences through a new design system. Marcela reveals how a “why does everything look different?” moment from their CEO was the catalyst for this ambitious effort, how they’re collaborating across a massive org, and successfully reducing development timelines from years down to months. Plus, Marcela’s team dishes out their design system spice takes!

Links & References

• Marcela Rodriguez Joos on LinkedIn
• Marcela on the Into Design Systems Connect your Design System to business value Roundtable

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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Ever had a team come to you after an a11y audit like, "but I used the design system, why does my product have accessibility defects??" Daniel Henderson-Ede, one of design systems' leading accessibility voices, joins me on the show today to unpack a spicy myth in design systems: that accessibility can be fully "built-in." Daniel walks us through the common pitfalls of overselling accessibility, how teams often mistakenly assume the system handles everything, and we explore the challenges and missteps of managing accessibility.

📋 Plus, check out Daniel's Systems-Accessibility Ownership Matrix resource that you can use on your Design System team!

Links & References

• Daniel Henderson-Ede on LinkedIn
• Daniel's website
• Daniel's recorded talks and shows
• Mantis & Co accessibility services
• Download Daniel and CVS's Figma Web Accessibility Annotation Kit
• Stark Figma plugin
• Use this for your teams! Daniel's Systems-Accessibility Ownership Matrix
• Inconsistent consistency within design systems

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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This one’s a little bit different than some of the projects and topics that we've had on the podcast so far — we’re talking about starting a new role. I think it's one of the hardest things that we do sometimes as design system practitioners, because the design system is really about changing your organization, changing the way we build UI, and so there's a lot of weight on your shoulders when you come into a new role.

Starting a new job as a design system practitioner can feel exciting and terrifying all at once—but Amy Ogg has some insights to help us navigate the emotional rollercoaster. Amy and Elyse chat about how to spend your first 30-60-90 days, building genuine trust, and why making big changes as a new hire can actually backfire. They commiserate over balancing the overwhelming backlog as a small team, and Amy shares why she thinks cross-training outside your expertise is a must. Plus, Amy shares how her experience as a barista shaped her approach to UX design ☕️

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

Links & References

• Amy Ogg on LinkedIn
• Desire paths in UX
• Amy’s article on how starting out with research and understanding users can help shape effective design systems on the Design Systems for Figma blog
• Your first 90 days in a UX design role by Christopher Nguyen
• The First 90 Days (original book) by Michael D Watkins
• Into Design Systems Meetups - Seattle, USA chapter
• Will Larson's book Staff Eng

🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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Design systems aren’t just about components—they’re about how teams work together to build better UI. Jeff Pelletier, a frontend engineer with a design background, joins the show to talk about feature workflows for design systems, how design and engineering can work in parallel, and why documentation should be part of the process, not an afterthought. Jeff and Elyse dive into how to create API-first component specs, the challenge of design-code parity, and the ~drama~ of having a formal process.

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

Links & References

• Jeff Pelletier on LinkedIn and website
• Nathan Curtis, Design System Features Step by Step
• Jeff's article Front-end Roles and Responsibilities
• Jeff on Design System Tiers
• Chris Coyier, The Widening Responsibility for Front-End Developers

🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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Spotify’s ad platform just got a serious glow-up, and Smith and Tyce are here to tell us how they pulled it off. Smith Schwartz, Product Design Manager, and Tyce Clee, Engineering Manager, walk us through the redesign of Spotify Ads Manager—why it was needed, how they used design systems to make it happen, and what it took to get buy-in. Smith and Tyce tell us about the shift from a playful UI to a more data-dense, enterprise-friendly experience, how their local design system worked alongside Spotify’s global Encore system, and why storytelling (not just metrics) is key to selling design system work internally. Plus, how a simple name like "Bye Purple" helped them drive alignment and make the redesign a company-wide priority.

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

Links & References

• Smith Schwartz on LinkedIn
• Tyce Clee on LinkedIn
• Backstory time! Smith & Tyce on the Knapsack Design Systems podcast last year talking about Ads Manager pre-redesign
• Reimagining Design Systems at Spotify on spotify.design
• Creating coherence: How Spotify’s design system goes beyond platforms, on the Figma Shortcut blog

🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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Adriana Morales from HEB (aka the best grocery store) poses a tricky question for the show: what happens when your design system can't support all your products, or your flagship product? Hashtag enterprise organization problems. Adriana and I explore some of the scenarios where this might occur, the "system of systems" concept, product team autonomy, and pace layers. Don't miss Adriana's explanation of her "ways of working" workshops and thoughts on creating empathy across your org.

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

Links & References

• Adriana Morales on LinkedIn
• HEB
• Pace layers (might as well just link this from every episode??)

🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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I invited Beau to the podcast because of his great Medium articles on design systems... but he's not working on a system team right now! Beau shares his experiences on both sides of the—fence? aisle?—and the lessons he's taken away. We chat about the tradeoffs of building for speed vs stability, bringing new designs for AI products into the system, onboarding, cross-team empathy, and why we're always complaining about the other side. Plus, find out what Beau wanted to be when he grew up.

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

Links & References

• Beau Ulrey on LinkedIn
• Beau on the Knapsack Design System Podcast
• Beau's articles on Medium
• A Design System That Holds Your Hand
• US Bank Shield Design System
• Oracle Redwood Design System
• Ship Faster by Building Design Systems Slower - Big Medium (pace layers)

🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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ToniAnn joins the show to share her experience building a multi-brand design system for BetMGM and Entain's joint venture. This episode is our first project deep dive and it's full of legacy codebases, lessons learned, and big wins. ToniAnn talks to us about dealing with ambiguity, owning your decisions, and keeping leadership on board as you ship a system that changes the way your business works—and your partners businesses, too.

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

Links & References

• ToniAnn Drenckhahn on LinkedIn
• BetMGM

🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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If the way we're building design systems has a fatal flaw, it's "waiting for enough investment to get it right." In this episode, Brian teaches us to not wait for permission and how your product teams' success is your success. Brian reminds us how important it is to remember that we're all on the same team, building the same product—and why internal politics and storytelling matters way more than components. Plus, why design systems are like toilets (not a Dad joke, I promise) and why Brian and I think "measuring the system is hard" is a beautiful thing.

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

Links & References

• Brian Alfaro on LinkedIn
• The Washington Post Design System
• Brian on bringing value first on the Connecting your Design System to business value panel with Into Design Systems
• Brian on the anatomy of WaPo's component sprints on the Figma blog

🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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I'm thrilled to have the one and only Dan Mall on the show, and in this episode, we get deep into all the things you maybe don't want to do if you want your design system to be successful. Dan shares his experiences with failed design systems, one very failed attempt at pitching a system to leadership,  why he thinks design systems should be specific not generic and maybe... not include foundations? Plus, we talk about useless documentation, what's next for systems, and THE spiciest take on tokens.

(Honestly, there are so many 🌶️ Spicy Takes™️ in this episode, we might have to rename the show to Design System Spicy Takes!)

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

Links & References

• Dan Mall on LinkedIn
• Dan Mall's portfolio
• Design System in 90 Days
• ❗️Free Resource: Design Systems in 90 Days Figjam Canvas
• More of Dan's free resources, talks, writing
• Design that Scales book
• Book a 1:1 with Dan

🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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You can't talk about design systems lately without addressing the elephant in the room: layoffs. Noelle walks us through her experience of multiple layoffs in one year, why 2023 was so different than 2020, and how the success criteria of design systems correlated with team layoffs. We discuss the bogeyman of "getting zero results from your design system" and what Noelle was hearing from business leadership about that, and how storytelling might matter more than metrics. Plus, a very spicy take on ~the rebrand~, and why at least one company was hiring for someone to delete  their design system 😱

Warning: F-word/language.

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

Links & References

• Noelle Lansford on LinkedIn
• Hire Noelle on your system: NoelleLansford.com
• Noelle's semi-viral blog post, The State of Design Systems
• layoffs.fyi
• Sam Anderson's Design Systems are Infrastructure
• eBay Design Playbook

🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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Jina Anne gives us a history of the journey from early style guides to widespread industry adoption of design systems, and the challenges and successes. We explore how tokens came to be, how it feels when the engineering team just starts using your work before it's ready, the separation of HTML/CSS/JS concerns, and how ClarityConf got started. Plus, the origin of the phrase "design systems" (maybe?), and  what the NASA Graphic Standards Manual has to do with ClarityConf.

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

Links & References

• Jina Anne
• ClarityConf
• The Design Systems Slack
• Quark
• Salesforce Theo for design tokens
• Old-school CSS tools Sass, Less, and Stylus
• CSS Custom Properties (variables)
• Adam Morris and Tachyons
• Salesforce Lightning Design System
• Nicole Sullivan and Mark Otto at The Mixin meetup
• Richard Danne, Designing for Earthlings and Astronauts at ClarityConf 2016
• The original 1976 NASA Graphic Standards Manual
• Gartner Hype Cycle for UX 2024
• Penpot (Figma alt)
• Josh Silverman at CCA
• Ben Callahan's The Question

🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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Brad Frost takes us back in time to the early days of design systems, and walks us through some of the significant moments of evolution from style guides to modern design systems. We dig in to the multiple proto-Storybook-esque projects, the original problem of sharing UI patterns, what React did, and Brad's personal moment of "oh, it's called design systems now." Plus, a bonus podcast throwback from the Style Guides Podcast feat. Dave Rupert and some early proto-Storybook madness.

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

Links & References

• Brad Frost
• Brad's new tokens course, Subatomic
• patternlab.io
• How Pattern Lab worked
• This is Responsive
• styleguides.io
• Anna Debenham
• Nicole Sullivan OOCSS
• Jonathan Snook SMACSS Book
• Natalie Downe "Practical Maintainable CSS"
• Ethan Marcotte's original Responsive Design article in A List Apart
• The Story of React
• THAT React CSS in JS slide
• Style Guides podcast with Dave Rupert
• RetailMeNot's Roux project

 
🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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Elyse shares five predictions for design systems in 2025 and beyond in the second pre-season minisode. Text the show to share your thoughts and predictions and maybe even be featured in a future minisode!

Early Bird tickets are available until January 15th for Into Design System's excellent annual virtual conference, featuring Nathan Curtis, Romina Kavcic, Cintia Romero, and more. Get your tickets now before prices go up at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

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Are design systems in the trough of disillusionment? Elyse explores the past decade of design systems and what we're missing in this pre-season one minisode. 

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