Design Systems with Netlify

About Kaelig Deloumeau-Prigent:

Kaelig is a Principal Software Engineer at Netlify, where he helps front-end and design teams deliver world-class digital product experiences by eliminating friction between concepts and execution.

Over the course of his career, Kaelig has worked on industry-defining design systems at Salesforce and Shopify, he has also led front-end architecture projects for renowned organizations such as BBC, The Guardian, and Financial Times. In 2019, Kaelig founded the Design Tokens W3C Community Group, promoting open standards for scalable design systems. He is the author of a book on CSS architecture and frequently shares his insights on stage and in podcasts.

Kaelig on Linkedin‍

Chapters‍

00:00 Introduction and Overview
05:26 Defining and Owning a Design System
10:56 Getting Started with Design System
15:43 Measuring the Maturity of a Design System
26:17 Maintenance and upkeep
28:18 Common Mistakes
31:05 DevEx impact
34:28 Rapid Fire

Summary‍

In this conversation, Ankit Jain speaks with Kaelig about the intricacies of developer experience (DevEx) and design systems, comparing the dynamics in large organizations like Shopify to smaller ones like Netlify. They explore the definition and ownership of design systems, the importance of measuring maturity, and the common pitfalls teams face when building these systems. Kaelig shares insights on how to convince leadership of the value of design systems and discusses the future of developer experience, particularly with the rise of AI tools.‍

Keywords

Developer Experience, Design Systems, Frontend Development, UX, Engineering, Maturity, Ownership, Maintenance, Outsourcing, Leadership‍

Takeaways

• Developer experience at Netlify focuses on both internal and external users.
• Design systems are essential for maintaining brand expression in UI components.
• Ownership of design systems can involve multiple roles including designers, engineers, and PMs.
• Outsourcing design system development is more common in larger companies.
• Adoption is a key metric for measuring the success of a design system.
• Gold standards in design systems exist but vary by company size and investment.
• Creativity and engineering must balance in mature design systems.
• Maintenance involves fixing bugs, ensuring accessibility, and updating components.
• Common mistakes include building in isolation and over-investing without clear goals.
• Convincing leadership requires demonstrating the impact of design systems on efficiency and creativity.