A walkthrough of our design system and how we got here | Kyan
It all started at Patterns Day…
(Note: you’ll probably need to use Reader mode to avoid taxing your eyes reading this—the colour contrast …doesn’t.)
Link tags: guide
146
Global and Component Style Settings with CSS Variables — Sara Soueidan
Sara shares how she programmes with custom properties in CSS. It sounds like her sensible approach aligns quite nicely with Andy’s CUBE CSS methodology.
Oh, and she’s using Fractal to organise her components:
I’ve been using Fractal for a couple of years now. I chose it over other pattern library tools because it fit my needs perfectly — I wanted a tool that was unopinionated and flexible enough to allow me to set up and structure my project the way I wanted to. Fractal fit the description perfectly because it is agnostic as to the way I develop or the tools I use.
A Guide to the Responsive Images Syntax in HTML | CSS-Tricks
Chris has put together one of his indispensable deep dives, this time into responsive images. I can see myself referring back to this when I need to be reminded of the syntax of srcset and sizes.
Extinguished Countries
Guidebooks to countries that no longer exist.
The first book will be on the Republic of Venice. There’ll be maps, infographics, and I suspect there’ll be an appearance by Aldus Manutius.
Our first guidebook tells the story of the Republic of Venice, la Serenissima, a 1000-year old state that disappeared in 1797.
The Guardian digital design style guide
What a lovely way to walk through the design system underpinning the Guardian website.
Bonus points for using the term “tweak points”!
The Patterns Day Edition | Amy Hupe, content designer.
Amy’s talk at Patterns Day was absolutely brilliant! Here’s an account of the day from her perspective.
The evident care Jeremy put into assembling the lineup meant an incredible mix of talks, covering the big picture stuff right down to the nitty gritty, and plenty in between.
Her observation about pre-talk nerves is spot-on:
I say all of this because it’s important for me and I think anyone who suffers with anxiety about public speaking, or in general, to recognise that having a sense of impending doom doesn’t mean that doom is actually impending.
Patterns Day
Here’s a nice little round-up of Friday’s Patterns Day.
Weeknotes #16 | Trys Mudford
Just look at these fantastic pictures that Trys took (very unobstrusively) at Patterns Day—so rock’n’roll!
Patterns Day notes
Stuart took copious notes during every single talk at Patterns Day—what a star!
A Complete Beginner’s Guide to React by Ali Spittel
This really is a most excellent introduction to React. Complete with cheat sheet!
Dimensions.Guide | Database of Dimensioned Drawings
There’s something quite lovely about this site, both in its purpose and execution.
Dimensions.Guide is a comprehensive reference database of dimensioned drawings documenting the standard measurements and sizes of the everyday objects and spaces that make up our world. Created as a universal resource to better communicate the basic properties, systems, and logics of our built environment, Dimensions.Guide is a free platform for increasing public and professional knowledge of life and design.
GitHub - frctl/awesome-fractal: A curated list of awesome things related to Fractal
A starter list of Fractal examples and links. You can expand it.
Mozilla Protocol - Protocol Design System
Mozilla’s work-in-progress style guide and pattern library.
Brighton Guide
Fascinating snippets of information about some of the most interesting buildings in Brighton.
(The website was made by Lydia and Tash as a project for Code First: Girls)
Beyond style guides: lessons from scaling design at TELUS
I like the questions that the TELUS team ask about any potential components to be added to their design system:
- Is it on brand?
- Is it accessible?
- Has it been tested?
- Can it be reused?
They also have design principles.
Accessibility for Teams
I really, really like the way that this straightforward accessibility guide is subdivided by discipline. As Maya wrote in the blog post announcing its launch:
Each person on a team, whether you’re a manager, designer, or developer, has a role to play. Your responsibilities are different depending on your role. So that’s how we structured the guide, with a separate section for each of five roles:
- Product management
- Content design
- UX design
- Visual design
- Front-end development
Introducing the GOV.UK Design System - Government Digital Service
The Gov.uk design system is looking very, very good indeed—nicely organised with plenty of usage guidelines for every component.
Guidance on using components and patterns now follow a simple, consistent format based on task-based research into what users need in order to follow and trust an approach.
Bulb Design System
I really like the way that this pattern library includes research insights to provide justification for design decisions.
Priority Guides: A Content-First Alternative to Wireframes · An A List Apart Article
It really, really bothers me that wireframes have evolved from being a prioritisation tool into a layout tool (disempowering UI designers in the process), so I’m happy to see an alternative like this—somewhat like Dan Brown’s Page Description Diagrams.