Choosing the right frontend style guide workflow

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February 11, 2015 Choosing the right frontend style guide workflow for your project DrupalCon Latin America 2015

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Listen to this talk: 4ktch.in/latin2015-style-guides Presented at

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Aaron Stanush Creative Director and Partner @aaronstanush [email protected]

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Traditional style guides

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Links!

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Links :(

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2012: starbucks.com goes responsive

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Starbucks style guide

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Typography Buttons Grid Layouts Navigation Media Forms Starbucks style guide

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You want a living style guide

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Why create a living style guide?

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Traditional style guides • PDF :( • Latest version? • Hard to distribute • Hard to edit / keep up to date • Impossible to document web interactivity

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Advantages to creating a living style guide

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Improves team-wide communication

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bradfrost.com/blog/post/interface-inventory Provides design consistency

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Patterns + Reusability = Faster build times

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Living style guides • Improve cross-team communication • Provide design consistency • Avoid CSS bloat, encourages reusability • Faster build times • Made with actual HTML/CSS + Interactivity • Available online, editable • Version control

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What’s in a style guide?

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Branding

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Writing

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Design Language

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Coding standards

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Component / Pattern / UI library

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Choose your own adventure

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Start with the basics • Branding assets • Color palette • Typography • Grid • UI components / Patterns • Page layouts

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“… it’s a one-stop place for the entire team—from product owners and producers to designers and developers—to reference when discussing site changes and iterations.” — Susan Robertson alistapart.com/article/creating-style-guides

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Approaches

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Style guides approaches Manual Generated Hybrid

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Production Visual Design Prototypes Manual style guide Style Guide Custom build or framework Design / Build

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wp.style.fourkitchens.com World Pulse style guide worldpulse.com

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texasexes.style.fourkitchens.com Texas Exes style guide github.com/fourkitchens/texasexes-style-guide

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Code for America, pattern library as a deliverable style.codeforamerica.org

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Manual style guide tools • Static site generators • Jekyll - jekyllrb.com • Middleman - middlemanapp.com • Style guide frameworks • styleguides.io/tools.html

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Keeping your style guide in sync • Keep Sass/asset directories identical to production • Git subtree merging • Bower • github.com/north/generator-Style-Prototype#via-bower • Advanced: Make your style guide a services that your websites and apps can use

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When to use the manual approach • Doing design upfront is part of your process • Need to start design before you know everything you’re building • Development resources aren’t available • Design is the deliverable

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Generated style guide Production Visual Design Prototypes Design / Build CSS + documentation syntax Generator magic! Style Guide

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What’s a generator? 1. Write your Sass 2. Add documentation as comments 3. Run the generator app in the command line 4. You’ve got a style guide! Let’s do an example with kss-node!

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main title Description Chapter # section title markup Classes, states Subchapter # Styles

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github.com/kss-node/kss-node $ kss-node 1. Parses your stylesheets 2. Outputs static HTML files in /styleguide

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KSS-node + Drupal amsterdam2014.drupal.org/session/styleguide-driven-development-new-web-development

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vinspee.me/style-guide-guide Lots of generators to choose from alistapart.com/blog/post/style-guide-generator-roundup

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When to use the Generator approach • The project doesn’t afford a lot of time for upfront design • You want to design against the production environment/CMS • You’re only doing the implementation • You don’t want to maintain a separate/custom system for the style guide

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CSS / JS Development/ Production Style Guide Hybrid style guide Component markup / HTML

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cognition.happycog.com/article/the-scoop-on-our-benjerry.com-style-guide Ben & Jerry’s style guide

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When to use the Hybrid approach • You don’t necessarily want the documentation inside the Sass/CSS itself • You need more flexibility in your environments • You need more flexibility in how designers and developers work together

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…and if you want to take your style guide to the next level

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medium.com/salesforce-ux/living-design-system-3ab1f2280ef7 sfdc-styleguide.herokuapp.com ianfeather.co.uk/a-maintainable-style-guide rizzo.lonelyplanet.com/styleguide

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What if I want to add a style guide for my existing site?

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Creating style guides for existing sites • Hybrid (easier): Create a style guide with your site’s components and link it to your production CSS • Generated (harder): Choose a generator, then go through your production Sass and add the appropriate structured documentation syntax more time consuming, but more sustainable

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Best practices

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Best practices • Put it online and easy to find • Make it for everyone • Make it part of your workflow • Keep things general, aim for reuse • Make maintenance easy (Keep it up to date!) More: bradfrost.com/blog/post/style-guide-best-practices