While we touched on teams of one, which is quite common in our community, how do we function in medium size teams of 3+ designers, and how can we effectively, and intentionally scale.

In our second episode dedicated to accessibility in design systems, Davy and PJ talk about the surface level explorations of color contrast, then learning more about how to better design for screen readers, for a better web experience.

We start our series with learning about how design systems interact and help our other team members from different disciplines. We start with Matt Petitt, Engineering Manager at Dayforce.

Davy and PJ talk in depth about the perils of chasing efficiency, and how we approach measuring effort and time-saved. And does this tie into velocity at all?

In the tough market of design team contractions, Davy and PJ talk about how to maintain focus and stability as a horizontal design practice.

On this episode, PJ talks about his time using Figma's REST API and how with so much data collected, we just need it to do a little more for us.

These have become some of our favorites, and tend to cover more ground than a typical ep. Nico, community manager for Zeplin joins as a co-host for this special ep.

Happy episode 60! Davy and PJ talk about a popular design system topic when we start out, Contributions and Federated Help. While this all sounds good, what are some of the pitfalls of relying too heavily on contributions and help from external design resources.

Is system adoption the only measure of success? Davy and PJ talk about adoption metrics we tend to tie ourselves to, and how it may not always paint the most complete picture.

Or aptly named, Color Complexity in Design by our GPT pal, Davy and PJ discuss the use or rather overuse of color in product design. When thinking about color in design systems, once again, less is most appropriate.

Fresh off 2 days of Config in-person conference, Davy talks with PJ about his time IRL, and talk about what they thought about feature releases, and what we might have expected.

Pre-Config episode, Davy and PJ follow up our last "Just Say No" episode with an ep about design system fatigue. As a service team, how do we maintain the good graces, and continue to help designers produce the best work. It all starts and ends with a design culture that promotes early communication with the your design system frens.…

When you're on a team of one, or fully staffed team with design and engineers, you'll soon have to shift some of your yes responses, to no. Davy and PJ talk how this at times trickles in through contributions, something that was an exciting concept in early days, but can get harder to manage as demand scales.…

Davy and PJ go over their favorite Davy and PJisms, their versions of design principles that they have been following them around through several design roles over the years.

We had such good traction on one of our first episodes, we decided to bring on another friend of the program, Donnie D'Amato to talk about design technologists, where they should sit in the org, and how we can use them as designers to be our best helping hand.

It's a design system emergency! Our updates are no longer behind a somewhat blocking dialog in Figma. Davy and PJ had to jump on to talk about how this may help or not receive and adopt new system changes.

Davy and PJ talk about the importance of standing up rituals, much like our product design partners, including, how might design system teams handle crits and office hours. How might a designer working at a Facebook leverage a feed, or a internal Facebook group, to share updates.

We made it to our 2 year birthday and 50 episodes! We reflect in Davy's shift into back into IC at Meta, and PJ's shift from IC to Manager most recently at Pinterest, and how the roles differed for us in design systems.

Davy and PJ talk about how to get into your first DS job, the answer being things to know OTHER than building components. On the second half of the pod, we flip to how to get into DS as a discipline as a product designer.

As we approach 2 years, and 50 episodes, we recap this year and dive back into how AI changed some of our thinking this year, as well as what we would like to see out of the design systems practice in 2024. Episode Transcripts

One theme that has been our mind working in large mega design teams, is how our product design teams handle outside, external POV, vs historical cannon. Davy and PJ discuss this, weaved in with how we like to evaluate potential solutions for our systems. Episode Transcripts

With convos of relying on external services such as design system docs sites, Figma plugins, or analytics, we talk about our experience working in large teams with funding to build our own, vs utilizing third party services that can simply get you up and running immediately. Episode Transcript

Davy and PJ talk a little more in depth about support and the dangers of being a purely reactive design system team. How do you handle requests, and how to operate the program during times of duress. Episode Transcripts

Listener question: DS team of one, and how to keep afloat and keep the program going. We touch on what you might want to focus on, and getting help as soon as you can so you can scale. Episode Transcripts

We are back in your lives with a normal 1:1 with Davy and PJ about design system complexities, and how you might want to consider a system with less tokens, variants, and what it's like for Davy to manage 149 components on web alone. Episode Transcripts

We have a friend of the program, Cintia Romero from Pinterest to talk about her work leading the accessibility design and education programs that has been now consumed by hundreds of designers. You can view the Pinterest docs site at:https://gestalt.pinterest.systems/

Recorded with @disco_lu a few months ago, Davy and Luis go rapid-fire on various design system hiring, component-building philosophies, and training. See below for timestamps. (1:25): How Davy got started in DS (6:00): Package my narrative as DS designer (7:00): How to posture yourself to obtain your ideal position (8:34): How to utilize existing j…

Happy 40th episode birthday. We talk about moving fast vs designing and building with intentionality, and naturally the convo led morphed into a half episode about ways of partnering with product designers, and how we work on our systems at Meta and Pinterest. Episode Transcripts

With DS being table stakes on lots of product design teams, and even job postings, we talk about whether you need one, or whether your efforts should be scaled elsewhere. What are you really getting yourself into when you start this journey.. Episode Transcripts

This was a special LIVE RECORDING at The Future of Design Systems conference hosted by @IntoDSConf. Friend of the program @rominadesigner takes over as host. We talk about what hard skills are important to have (building components), and the novel idea of interviewing specifically for systems thinking.…

Davy comes back from Config 2023, pondering life in and outside of the file, and some rapid fire QA with Davy and PJ. (01:25) Config 2023 IRL recap. (22:10) IntoDS, Future of Design Systems talk QA. Episode Transcripts Bonus link: Leading through Uncertainty @halli

One of Davy's favorite parts of being an IC is being able to still build components, and chase Figma's quest for excellence. Davy and PJ talk about the approach their teams take for building and maintaining design components, alignment with code source of truth, and staying away from uber components. ⁠Episode Transcripts⁠…

We’ve been following Masato’s project, designsystem.careers for a while now, and given the nature of the design job economy, wanted to pick his brain on how we can better interview design system designers and engineers. ⁠Episode Transcripts⁠

As design system maintainers, we have the unique role of being deeply entrenched in our own product roadmaps. How can we find opportunity areas and advocate for what we think is best for our consumers? Can we even achieve this within a given time frame. Davy PM and PJ talk about how this has worked at Meta and Pinterest. ⁠Episode Transcripts⁠…

Governance doesn't have to be a bad work, but can define how you convey intent through your system. We love governing so much, there's some bits and pieces that we covered in Ep 15: Support. Episode Transcripts

Special episode with a friend of the program, Angelina Allen, Senior Product Manager of Native Design Systems at US Bank. Infinitely curious without having product management dedicated support on our teams, Davy and PJ talk to her about her role and how important it is on larger design systems team to have a product manager/owner help guide the wor…

What happens when we get lost on our own sauce, our presentations, decks, vision work, and forget about the tactical and operational work we need to do so we can keep the design systems train moving along. Episode Transcripts

We made it to episode 30! It's about time we talked about Design Delivery and why design system maintainers are so passionate about it. Can we as a design and product team agree to deliver artifacts, in one single format? I bet the design systems team can help with a framework for that. Episode Transcript…

Looking to learn more about design systems with some friends of the program, we talk to Val Poon, an early career designer at Info-Tech Research Group.

With all this chat (pun included) about ChatGPT, how else can we utilize some programmable help with AI and automation. Plus, the differences between a sweet potato and a yam. Episode Transcripts

Davy and PJ answer listener questions that came in from some friends of the program. We touch on fun component library design only components, governance, office hours issue tracking, documentation, interviewing, and much more. Episode Transcripts

With the rise of design system teams in orgs, Davy and PJ talk about how their roles have progressed through product design, and design ops. How have things changed while we have come in and out of IC <> management? Today in our roles, what does IC leadership in Design Systems look like for us? Episode Transcripts…

Happy 2023 and 1st birthday to the podcast! We got a treat for those new the program, our greatest hits from the first 20 episodes. Timestamps: Ep 9: ROI (02:08), Ep 10: Hindsight (07:00), Ep 13: Feedback (11:42), Ep 18: Contributions (15:38), Ep 20: Education and Onboarding (19:59), Ep 2: Design Technologists (25:00), Ep 3: Releases (28:33), Ep 5:…

Welcome to the show 2023, even tho this was recorded in 2022. This is the last of our trilogy series, about how to get started in Design Systems. What happens after you get to year 2 and so on? Is your job done because everyone is bought in and good actors and advocates supporting the system? Episode Transcripts…

2nd in our series of the first years of design systems, Davy and PJ talk about how to grow the team, and where we have decided on our teams to focus on; which of the design system knobs, library, education, documentation, we decided to turn. Episode Transcript

Originally episode 21, if not for our last special episode on layoffs, we talk about how to get a design system up and running, and things we looked to achieve in years 0-1. This ep is the first in a series of 3 episodes about getting started in design systems. Episode Transcripts

During this rough week at Meta and Twitter, Davy and PJ discuss how to continuously prove ROI for yourself and your team in the light of operating on leaner teams. Episode Transcripts

Happy Halloween and 20th episode to us! Davy and PJ talk about how their teams support educating designers and the continuous task of training product designers, whether they are new to the org, or just new to the design system. Episode Transcripts

Davy and PJ talk about different design system team make ups at Disney Streaming, Meta, and Pinterest. How federated vs centralized have worked for them; and how big does your team need to be? Episode Transcripts

Davy and PJ talk about how they're thinking about contribution models on their teams and mechanisms to get better XFN collaboration between design and engineering. Episode Transcripts