Zeenat Niazi

How do you use words to describe what you do in UX? Is it still a struggle to get across some of the ideas, processes and approaches to people who aren't in user experience design? Do you wonder whether designing for humans and design for good might need a bit of a refresh when it comes to the language of design and agile? Check our our A to Z guide to user experience design now. No aardvarks or zebras, but it definitely gets meta. Let's start talking and maybe be able to understand each other better: https://lnkd.in/eJtbezjJ #uxdesign #humancentreddesign #agile #contentproduction #digitalskills

Design systems is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot. Are we all talking about the same thing though? Using the idea of a 'design system' is understandable if you want to get an organisation to understand that different documents that cover standards, processes and rules are nice, but on their own resemble a disorganised, dust-gathering library. In other words, 'design system' isn't just a snazzy phrase, it means something. But what? Here's one version. A design system isn't something separate to what you have, or a lovely wrapper to cover everything to make it look like everything works really slickly. A good design system makes sense of what you do, why, when and how. It makes it easy for anyone in your organisation, no matter what they do, to understand what they need to do, when, why and how. It also makes it easy for everyone to understand how everything can and should work well together so you create good user experiences, including good experiences of creating user experiences. Design systems might include any or all of the following: - design principles - brand guidelines (these might work with or be the same thing as design principles, depending on how you interpret the idea that the core of the brand is everything facing in the same direction with the same purpose) - information architecture - documentation for developers - style guides, content standards and content guidance - UI and content pattern libraries - component libraries, including code snippets Most importantly, a design system will work in a consistent way using language that, ideally, everyone understands, so that an organisation, team or group can: - collaborate - talk to each other - do things at the right time, in the right way and for the right reasons - make things simply, easily and efficiently That's one version. What's your take on design systems? Is it even a useful phrase? Do they work? And to get involved in talking about what we mean when we use different words and phrases in UX, check out our A to Z of user experience design: https://lnkd.in/eZD66uFz