Design Systems Podcast

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On today's episode of the Design Systems Podcast, we hear from Catalina Manea, Senior Designer at Spelunk, about the crucial intersection of design and development. Catalina shares her journey from graphic design to product and systems design, providing insights into the importance of reusability, cross-functional collaboration, and empathy in building scalable and adaptable design systems. Catalina emphasizes that design systems go beyond UI and consistency—they are powerful tools for enhancing teamwork and agility in fast-paced environments.

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Guest
Catalina Manea has been a system designer since the early stages of her career as a product designer, working with both emerging and established design systems. She has collaborated with cross-functional teams to launch new systems from scratch and has contributed to refining and evolving well-established ones across multiple industries. Throughout Catalina’s career, she has enjoyed mentoring junior designers and sharing insights at industry conferences.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

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What does the future of UX look like? In today's episode, our host, Chris Strahl, sits down with Kate Moran, the VP of Research and Content at Nielsen Norman Group. They explore the promise of hyper-personalized experiences, the challenges of resource limitations, and the innovative potential of AI in accelerating design processes. Kate touches on the balance between speed and risk when integrating AI into products, highlighting the significance of human input in maintaining brand consistency and preventing unpredictability. Their conversation addresses ethical considerations, data privacy, and the societal impact of AI, emphasizing transparent communication from organizations.

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Guest

Kate Moran is an expert in UX research, writing, and strategy. She has made substantial contributions to the field through her research and thought leadership. Kate is Vice President of Research and Content at Nielsen Norman Group.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

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In this episode of The Design Systems Podcast, Chris Strahl welcomes Guy Segal, the director of digital ecosystem and design systems at Thomson Reuters. Guy shares his experience of building a design system that serves over 150+ brands and the importance of having a point of view when you are working to bring both quality and consistency to a large portfolio of products. From design system missionaries to trojan horses to carrots and sticks, Guy and Chris talk about how to gain the buy-in you need to build a design system product teams will want to use.

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Guest

Guy Segal is a design leader with over 25 years of experience in the tech industry, specializing in UX, product design, and DesignOps. Leveraging his passion for design leadership and people management, he has a proven track record of fostering innovation and collaboration within design teams, establishing and nurturing design practices, and leading teams to success. Guy's expertise extends to various domains, including product, UX, and service design, as well as a strong background in web and UI development. In recent years, he has been focusing extensively on design systems, establishing and growing teams around the practice, and launching systems that optimize efficiency and enhance user experiences. Beyond his professional endeavors, Guy is an avid enthusiast of board games, food, and movies, welcoming conversations on diverse topics that extend beyond the realm of design.

Guy’s Design Downtime podcast: http://designdowntime.com/

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

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It’s all just opinions, man! In this episode of the Design Systems Podcast, Mark Shuster talks about the shift away from enforcing strict guidelines through design systems towards enabling good design and production practices in a more transparent and collaborative way.  Chris and Mark discuss different sources of truth within a design system, flexibility and iteration, and why composability is so important to the future of the product engineering process. 

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Guest
Mark Shuster is an Engineering Manager at Dropbox, leading a team responsible for building DIG, Dropbox’s design system. With previous design systems experience at Twitch and BuzzFeed, Mark has a rich background spanning UX design and front-end development. He holds a Master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University and is based in the Bay Area.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

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This week we are joined by Nick Hahn to explore how designers, engineers, product managers, and entire organizations have changed the way they think about and work with design systems. Nick shares insight from his experiences at IBM, InVision, Meta, and Bill.com to highlight the importance of collaboration, governance, education, and cultural adoption. Join host, Chris Strahl and Nick to understand how design systems evolved and what’s next..

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Guest

Nick Hahn has spent 20+ years working in the design industry. He specializes in the human side of Design, building scalable systems and operations for some of the top brands in the world, including IBM, Meta, and Bill.com.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

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Recording during Config 2024, this bonus episode of The Design Systems Podcast features long-time friends of the Pod, Jina Anne and Adekunle Oduye. They share their fresh takes on the latest Figma keynote, including the buzz around AI-generated designs and the revamped Figma UI. The conversation explores the future of design systems, deeper code integrations, and personalized user experiences enabled by AI. Plus, Jina and Adekunle give a sneak peek into their upcoming book! 

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Guest

Jina Anne is a designer, developer, and community advocate. She founded Clarity (ClarityConf.com), the premier design systems community conference, and organizes meet-ups in the San Francisco area.).Jina is also a published author and public speaker. 

Adekunle Oduye is UX engineer specializing in design systems, front-end development and prototyping. He is also an avide travel fan, host of the Code & Pixels Podcast, and working with Jina Anne to write a book. 

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

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Today’s episode features Ashley Willard and Sarah Kimball (Skim) from Apiture, a smallish fintech company with big enterprise ambitions for its design system. Host Christ Strahl chats with Ashley and Skim about the challenges and opportunities their small team faces trying to navigate the complexities of building a design system that unifies the look and feel of different products and technologies and helps accelerate product delivery. Whether you're working in a large enterprise or a growing startup, their story provides valuable lessons on creating and maintaining effective design systems.

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Guest

Ashley is the Director of Product Design at Apiture and has worked in design and UX for 20+ years across many industries. She lives in Durham, NC.

Skim is a Design Systems nerd who has been working in this space since 2018. She currently works as a Senior UX Engineer at Apiture.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

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Chris Strahl welcomes Dave Calleja back to the podcast to discuss the changing nature of design systems, integrating AI into the human creative process, and how to use behavior data for real-time design adaptations. Dave shares his views on the importance of design systems to customer experiences and how modern tools help scale personalized experiences that align with brand vision. Tune in to discover how the future of design systems is being shaped by AI, automation, and personalized content.

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Guest
Dave leads the design practice at Merkle and dentsu in Australia-New Zealand as well as their Design Systems offering globally. He is deeply passionate about the role design plays creating in exceptional, memorable and transformative customer experiences. Right now, he’s focused on helping teams deliver a clear experience vision to every moment in the customer journey. You can connect with Dave on LinkedIn.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Transcript

Chris Strahl [00:00:00]:

Hi, and welcome to the Design Systems podcast. This podcast is about the place where design and development overlap. We talk with experts to get their point of view about trends in design code and how it relates to the world around us. As always, this podcast is brought to you by Knapsack. Check us out at knapsack.cloud. If you want to get in touch with the show, ask some questions, or generally tell us what you think, go ahead and tweet us at thedspod. We'd love to hear from you. Hey, everyone.

Chris Strahl [00:00:22]:

Welcome to the design Systems podcast. I'm your host, Chris Strahl. Today I'm here with a repeat guest, Dave Calleja. Dave, it's so great to have you back. I know you're in the midst of a little bit of career reorganization, so why don't you talk about what you're doing these days?

Dave Calleja [00:00:36]:

Thanks, Chris. Really excited to be here again and really looking forward to the conversation. So my role has changed a bit since we last spoke. I'm responsible for experience design across Dentsu and Merkel in AnZ, and I'm also really excited to be leading our global design systems capability across Merkel.

Chris Strahl [00:00:53]:

Well, hey, it's great to have you back. It's been a long time coming. You were actually reminding me before the show that we used to record these asynchronously, like, with a ton of different software and everything like that. And, like, it's actually a different world of podcasting now that you've returned, so eager to have you back on, get kind of an update. And also, you know, one of the things that sparked this conversation was a post about the use of AI in design systems, and so I'm stoked to talk about it.

Dave Calleja [00:01:18]:

Yeah, likewise. You know, the world is changing so much faster since we last spoke. Like, we've

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Today on the podcast, we talk to Meredith Van Lier, the director of product management at ServiceNow. Chris and Meredith discuss the unique evolution of ServiceNow's design system and its shift towards a more flexible and user-centric design approach, emphasizing collaboration, automation, and accessibility. Learn about the strategic vision, collaborative efforts, and meticulous attention to quality defining ServiceNow's design system.

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Guest

Meredith Van Lier is the Director of Product Management, leading a team of product managers responsible for the Horizon Design System and UX foundations at ServiceNow. She provides product direction and strategy, focusing on driving modern experiences by enabling customers to design and build great experiences through the use of the design system. Meredith has more than 15 years of experience across enterprise, finance and consumer spaces.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

Welcome to another episode of The Design Systems Podcast! In honor of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we're thrilled to have Daniel Henderson-Ede, an accessibility specialist, here to discuss the need for and challenges of making inclusive design experiences for those with disabilities, and how design systems can help. Daniel shares why and how accessibility considerations should influence every decision in design systems to create better, more inclusive products. We get into the importance of theme management, and the latest updates in accessibility standards. Join us as we navigate the critical intersections of design, accessibility, and system thinking to shed light on how we can enhance user experiences on a grand scale.

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Guest
Daniel Henderson-Ede (he/him) is an Accessibility Designer for design systems at Pinterest. He loves working alongside designers, engineers, and leaders to advocate for accessibility at scale, with the aim of creating equitable experiences for disabled users. He has also previously used his design system knowledge to publish a collection of accessibility annotation kits whilst at CVS Health.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.