Free Online Event On Building And Maintaining Design Systems

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Cosima has been an editor at SmashingMag since 2013. Whenever she’s not writing articles for the weekly Smashing Newsletter, she’s probably working on a … More about Cosima ↬

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(This is a sponsored article.) Everybody's talking about design systems, but they are more than just a trend. They are a best practice for design consistency and efficiency between designers and developers.

Back in the day, only large companies could afford the effort of building and maintaining a design system. Nowadays, with the growth of new tools and processes, they have become much more feasible for companies of all sizes.

To help you take advantage of a design system to streamline not only the design of your product but also your team's workflow, our friends at UXPin are organizing the Design Systems Virtual Summit 2018 from February 13^th to 16^th. The event will take place entirely online and is free to join for everybody — thanks to sponsorship from Atlassian and Salesforce.

What You’ll Learn

The four days will be jam-packed with first-hand insights provided by experts from companies like Atlassian, Airbnb, Salesforce, Linkedin, Zendesk, GE Digital, IBM, and more. How do they tackle the challenge of building, using and maintaining a design system? To make learning as practical as possible, each speaker will share lessons learned from real projects and case studies — takeaways that you can apply to your work right away.

These are just a few of the things you will learn along the way:

How design systems help evolve a company’s design process and how they affect internal politics. How to assemble a design systems team and technology stack. How to identify and resolve design inconsistencies. Where design systems should be consistent or flexible and how to adapt tools and technology to balance both. How to avoid vague design principles. How to govern a design system for years and how to grow it. How to sustain consistency across products and interface targets (Android, iOS, VR, or even Natural Language interfaces). How to design collaboratively with global teams. How to build a design systems backlog, governance model, and ROI tracking. How to unify design with code. How to close knowledge gaps between designers and developers.

• How to sell a design system to designers, engineers, and stakeholders.

Schedule

Four days. 13 webinars. Attend them all or pick the ones you're most interested in — it's up to you. All times are PST.

Tuesday, February 13th

• 9:00 AM
  Consistency vs. Flexibility in Design Systems: A GE Case Study, Ken Skistimas (GE Digital)
• 10:30 AM
  UXPin: State of the Union Product Keynote, Marcin Treder (UXPin)
• 11:45 AM
  UXPin Demo: Creating Design Systems, Taylor Marshall (UXPin)
• 1:00 PM
  Should Designers?, Dan Mall (Superfriendly)
• 2:30 PM
  TBA (Atlassian)

Wednesday, February 14th

• 9:00 AM
  The Organizational Impact of Design Systems, Shahrzad Samadzadeh (Salesforce)
• 10:30 AM
  Creating and Maintaining a Design System for 130 Teams, Bethany Sonefeld (IBM Bluemix)
• 11:45 AM
  UXPin Demo: Agile UX Process, Taylor Marshall (UXPin)
• 1:00 PM
  Initiating and Sustaining Design Systems for the Enterprise, Carl Tsui & Jen Cardello (athenahealth)
• 2:30 PM
  Creating the Principles and Dimensions of a Design System, Dustin Wagner (Fjord)

Thursday, February 15th

• 9:00 AM
  Creating and Evolving Your Design Systems Process: Lessons Learned at Linkedin, Jessica Clark (Linkedin)
• 10:30 AM
  Thinking in Symbols for Universal Design, Ben Wilkins (Airbnb)
• 11:45 AM
  UXPin Demo: Collaboration + Developer Handoffs, Taylor Marshall (UXPin)
• 1:00 PM
  Accessibility in Design Systems, Allison Shaw (Zendesk)

Friday, February 16th

• 9:00 AM
  Design System Lessons Learned the Hard Way (Courtney Clark, Forumone)
• 10:30 AM
  UXPin Demo: Component-Based Prototyping, Taylor Marshall (UXPin) & Amy Vainieri (Taoti Creative)
• 1:00 PM
  TBA, Damon Dimmick (Constant Contact)

How Do You Join The Event?

You can register for the live event directly on the Virtual Summit site. It's free, no strings attached. Enjoy!

Further Reading

• What Was SmashingConf In San Franciso Like?
• How To Become A Better Speaker At Conferences
• Manage Accessible Design System Themes With CSS Color-Contrast()
• Simplify Your Color Palette With CSS Color-Mix()

(il, mrn)