Panel Recap: Scaling Design Systems: Pixels to People

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Host: Hayley Hughes from IBM. Speakers: Salih Abdul-Karim from Airbnb, Tim Allen from Microsoft and Jane Makich from Google.

Design systems teams are the connection between companies products/services experienced by users. These teams are diverse, on the cutting edge of advancing technology and create the best new design future for their company. In Friday’s panel “Scaling Design Systems: Pixels to People” the various speakers that are the design leaders for companies such as Airbnb, Google, Microsoft and IBM have a unique inside perspective on what makes design systems teams work in their companies and how they reach for success in their companies through design systems.

Tweet Credit – Cat Mooney @supakittcat

Hayley Hughes lead the discussion with various questions from her and also from audience tweets using the hashtags #designsystems #sxsw. The central theme from all speakers was that design systems are a process. Tim Allen from Microsoft and Salih Abdul-Karim from Airbnb agreed that design systems and teams are an “incubator” for the future products/services that will come from the ideas and design systems projects that have yet to be created.

This lead to the question of what is the role of the designer in the next few years? Allen explains that in the future a big part of the designer’s role will be to be a creative thinker. The contribution is key to getting ideas off the ground and funneling the loose ideas across the company’s team members, put them in a process that goes through various channels to then be sent out to the public.

When asked about diversity and inclusion, all panelists agreed that diversity is not only essential but sought for employment. Jane Makich from Google mentioned:

We need to hire people with diverse perspectives – but in a result that we reach great design.

Allen also mentions that exclusion or bias is a natural human tendency, but inclusive design makes people recognize these biases and identifies that exclusion. In the role of the designer and the power to inspire people, fluent design is showing design in a new way that people might not think to be possible. Salih Abdul-Karim from Airbnb also goes back to the theme of a design system as a process. “I think that people misunderstand. A system is not a thing, it is a process and it means something that can bring people together and it’s a beacon for people to look to.”

Tweet Credit – Jiayang Zhang @JiayangZhang

 

Lastly, the panelists left many great examples of what it takes to work as a designer and in a team that relies on team members to be unique, future idealists and take part in the process of working towards the bigger goal. As technology is always advancing to the newest and most innovative level, the designer and design systems are the future of curating these ideas in a tactical form.

Hashtags for panel: #designsystems #sxsw

Panelist Twitter handles: @hayhughes, @timallendesign, @jmakich and @therealsalith

Featured image: SXSW

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