Converge LDN 2022 takeaways

The designs systems conference in London

In the very first days of Autumn, and with decent weather, we had in London a good space for listening and chatting about design systems the tool for unlocking coherent user experiences. Converge LDN happened, we went with part of my team and hese are a collection of ideas that I recall from the conference:

Jim Dine, Big red wrench in a landscape

• The design system team makes the vision happen, that’s their primary mission.

• Even if I am not fond of cars, I learned that the lower part of cars (the platform as they call it) is a great example of design reused with different chassis and models. 

• "To thine own self be true" (be true to youself), it was the inscription at the top of the auditorium. It reminds me to try hard to be honest to oneself. It’s a quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet (which I haven’t read)

• Empathy with your users pays-off. Spend more time continuously discovering what their pain points are and testing solutions, not validating them.

• Describe the steps to make your adoption process happen. The logistics of the design system. Getting buy-in from early users requires swet, blood, toil and tears. Do the hardest and most challenging components first including that ugly organism you rather not do.

• Life is too short to keep oneself overly busy, there's never enough time for doing important and meaningful experiences. 

• Naming things is easier than agreeing on how things are named, domain vs subdomain, message vs toast.

• Contributions to communities of practice are easier when included in the expectations of the actual roles.