Slide 1
Slide 1 text
Designing Systems
Theory, Practice, and the Unfortunate In-between
@paulrobertlloyd
Smashing Conference Freiburg / 13 September 2016
Slide 2
Slide 2 text
No content
Slide 3
Slide 3 text
No content
Slide 4
Slide 4 text
No content
Slide 5
Slide 5 text
No content
Slide 6
Slide 6 text
Photograph: Marcel Gautherot
Slide 7
Slide 7 text
The Shock of the New: Trouble in Utopia
BBC Television, 1980
Slide 8
Slide 8 text
No content
Slide 9
Slide 9 text
— Frank Pick, 1926
The future of London cannot
be an accident like the past.
If it is to hold together, to
remain a workable,
manageable unit, it must
now be planned, be
designed, be organised.
Slide 10
Slide 10 text
No content
Slide 11
Slide 11 text
Photograph: London Transport Museum
Slide 12
Slide 12 text
No content
Slide 13
Slide 13 text
Photograph: Alexander Baxevanis
Slide 14
Slide 14 text
No content
Slide 15
Slide 15 text
No content
Slide 16
Slide 16 text
— Frank Pick, 1916
The test of the goodness of a thing is its fitness
for use. If it fails on this first test, no amount of
ornamentation will make it any better; it will only
make it more expensive, more foolish.
Slide 17
Slide 17 text
Chaos
Slide 18
Slide 18 text
What is a design system?
Slide 19
Slide 19 text
Tools
Guidance
Principles
Products
Principles
Slide 20
Slide 20 text
Tools
Guidance
Principles
Products
Principles
Slide 21
Slide 21 text
— Kate Rutter
Design Principles
Design principles are short, insightful phrases that
act as guiding lights and support the development
of great product experiences.
Design principles enable you to be true to your
users and true to your strategy over the long term.
Slide 22
Slide 22 text
Tools
Guidance
Principles
Products
Guidance
Slide 23
Slide 23 text
Designers: brand identity guidelines
Slide 24
Slide 24 text
Writers: tone of voice & style guides
Slide 25
Slide 25 text
Developers: code styles/conventions
Slide 26
Slide 26 text
Shared vocabularies Pixies
Bentos
Standfirst
Mini-bentos
Slide 27
Slide 27 text
No content
Slide 28
Slide 28 text
— Mark Boulton
Design systems and Postel’s Law
Policing a design system never works in my
experience. It never works because people don’t
like rigid systems, being told what to do, and will
straight up do the opposite. Being liberal in
accepting things into the system, and being liberal
about how you go about that, ensures you don’t
police the system. You collaborate on it.
Slide 29
Slide 29 text
No content
Slide 30
Slide 30 text
Components
Slide 31
Slide 31 text
No content
Slide 32
Slide 32 text
— Ethan Marcotte
I’ve found that thinking
about my design as existing
in broad experience tiers – in
layers – is one of the best
ways of designing for the
modern web.
Slide 33
Slide 33 text
Component concerns
Behaviour
Presentation
Meaning
Content
Content
Slide 34
Slide 34 text
## Movie rating
The average rating is 4 out of 5 stars, from a total
of [12 reviews](/reviews).
### Add your score
Your name: [ ]
Rating: ( ) 1 ( ) 2 ( ) 3 (•) 4 ( ) 5
[ ] Remember my details
( Submit rating )
Slide 35
Slide 35 text
Component concerns
Behaviour
Presentation
Meaning
Content
Meaning
Slide 36
Slide 36 text
4 out of 5 stars
Slide 37
Slide 37 text
Slide 38
Slide 38 text
.c-[module-name] {…}
.c-[module-name]__body {…}
// Header
.c-[module-name]__header {…}
.c-[module-name]__title {…}
// Content
.c-[module-name]__main {…}
.c-[module-name]__content {…}
.c-[module-name]__items {…}
.c-[module-name]__item {…}
// Footer
.c-[module-name]__footer {…}
Slide 39
Slide 39 text
Component concerns
Behaviour
Presentation
Meaning
Content
Presentation
Slide 40
Slide 40 text
// Colour palette
$color-brand--crimson: #c00;
$color-brand--mustard: #fc0;
$color-neutral--darkest: #222;
$color-neutral--darker: #444;
$color-neutral--dark: #666;
$color-neutral--mid: #888;
$color-neutral--light: #bbb;
$color-neutral--lighter: #ddd;
$color-neutral--lightest: #eee;
Slide 41
Slide 41 text
// Colour assignments
$color-text: $color-neutral--darkest;
$color-background--light: $color-neutral--darkest;
$color-background--dark: $color-neutral--darkest;
$color-link: $color-brand--crimson;
$color-link--hover: darken($color-brand--crimson, 10%);
$color-link--active: lighten($color-brand--crimson, 10%);
Slide 42
Slide 42 text
@mixin typeset($preset, $level) {
@if ($preset == title) {
font-family: $typeface-serif;
font-weight: bold;
letter-spacing: 0.0025em;
text-transform: uppercase;
@if ($level == 1) {
font-size: 1em;
line-height: 1.25em;
}
@if ($level == 2) {
font-size: 2em;
line-height: 2em;
}
…
Slide 43
Slide 43 text
.c-module__title {
font: bold 2em/1 Georgia, serif;
margin-bottom: 1.5em;
padding-top: 0.75em;
letter-spacing: 0.0025em;
text-transform: uppercase;
color: #222;
}
.c-module__title {
@include typeset(title, 2);
margin-bottom: ($baseline * 4);
padding-top: ($baseline * 2);
color: $color-text;
}
Slide 44
Slide 44 text
Guardian Style Sheets (GUSS)
github.com/guardian/guss
gs-span(3)
fs-header(2)
fs-headline(1)
fs-data(3)
gs-height(6)
colour($c-feature-main)
Slide 45
Slide 45 text
Component concerns
Behaviour
Presentation
Meaning
Content
Behaviour
Slide 46
Slide 46 text
Connections
Slide 47
Slide 47 text
No content
Slide 48
Slide 48 text
Photograph: Governo do Brasil
Slide 49
Slide 49 text
— Eliel Saarinen
Always design a thing by considering it in its next
larger context – a chair in a room, a room in a
house, a house in an environment, an environment
in a city plan.
Slide 50
Slide 50 text
No content
Slide 51
Slide 51 text
The wrong analogy?
• Composite
• Static
• Encapsulated
• Clear affordances
• Separate concerns
• Dynamic
• Leaky
• Difficult to reason with
>
Slide 52
Slide 52 text
Bringing encapsulation to the web
React
facebook.github.io/react
Web Components
webcomponents.org
BEM
en.bem.info
Slide 53
Slide 53 text
No content
Slide 54
Slide 54 text
Composition
Slide 55
Slide 55 text
Tools
Guidance
Principles
Products
Tools
Slide 56
Slide 56 text
Visual design languages
Slide 57
Slide 57 text
Component libraries
http://fractal.build
Slide 58
Slide 58 text
The container model
next.theguardian.com/blog/container-model-blended-content
Slide 59
Slide 59 text
Confluence of interests
Readers Editors
Designers Developers
Solution
Slide 60
Slide 60 text
The container model
Slices Containers
Items
Slide 61
Slide 61 text
No content
Slide 62
Slide 62 text
No content
Slide 63
Slide 63 text
Three levels of knowing
Simplicity
3 elements used to
create 3 spaces
Complexity
12 elements required to
create 12 spaces
Informed simplicity
3 elements combined to
create 12 spaces
Slide 64
Slide 64 text
Change
Slide 65
Slide 65 text
Photograph: Tim Dunn
Slide 66
Slide 66 text
Photograph: Kirk Bauer
Slide 67
Slide 67 text
Photograph: Transport for London
Slide 68
Slide 68 text
No content
Slide 69
Slide 69 text
— Jeff Crossman, former Product Designer at General Electric
A design system should not simply be a collection
of user interface components along with some
design theory. It should demonstrate how design
patterns have been applied in real products and
document how other teams have extended
patterns for specific use cases.
Slide 70
Slide 70 text
Tools
Guidance
Principles
Products
Products
Slide 71
Slide 71 text
— Frank Duffy, quoted in How Buildings Learn
Stuff
Space plan
Services
Skin
Structure
Site
Shearing layers
Our basic argument is that
there isn’t any such thing as
a building. A building
properly conceived is several
layers of longevity of built
components.
Slide 72
Slide 72 text
Tools
Guidance
Principles
Products
Slide 73
Slide 73 text
Collaboration
Components
Connections
Composition
Change
Slide 74
Slide 74 text
Complexity
Slide 75
Slide 75 text
Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike
@paulrobertlloyd / paulrobertlloyd.com
Danke!