As one of the spec editors, I really love seeing support for the DTCG file format ( https://tr.designtokens.org/ ) appearing in tools. The dream of seamless interoperability for design tokens edges a step closer each time.
Significant decline in developer participation: Only 12.7% of respondents were developers, down from 21.3% in the previous survey. Increased cross-functional collaboration is needed.
85.8% of design tokens are managed by designers, mostly within dedicated design system teams. Developers only own tokens in 9.9% of cases, showing a strong design-led governance trend.
Wrote my first article for #zeroheight! It's an interesting one as it's about a hidden feature within the product that people on the team didn't realise could be used in this way.
Speaking of #DesignSystem events, the nice folks at Specify are running "Connect" the week after next (13. - 17. Nov): "a week of exclusive insights on the future of design tokens and systems"
As part of that, I'll be taking part in a discussion panel about the #DesignTokens Community Group (DTCG) file format.
Hey #DesignSystem friends, I'm looking for my next job! Needs to be permanent and London-based hybrid or remote.
I know a thing or two about #UX, #WebDev, #a11y and #DesignTokens (I'm one of the DTCG spec editors 😜), so can get stuck into all sorts. Ideally though, I'd like to use my skills and experience to help your organisation establish, run or grow a design system!
I have a few ideas for blog posts relating to #DesignSystems & #DesignTokens, but my personal website design is extremely crusty and old (still using XHTML!!), so I worry folks might be turned off by that and not read the posts.
Benefit no. 1749 of #DesignSystems:
If your company is taken over by megalomaniac who decides on a whim to change the company's name and logo overnight, then it's just a matter of replacing a single SVG file and perhaps a few #DesignTokens and then letting the automated pipelines do their thing.
FWIW, an analogy the #DTCG editors have used in the past is vector graphics formats:
The #DTCG format aims to be to tokens what SVG is to vector graphics. Standardised, widely supported as an import/export format and (somewhat) human editable.
However, lots of design tools also have their own, proprietary formats - e.g. Illustrator has .ai files. These may have additional...
As we've seem in the vector world, both can coexist.
Perhaps users of, say, Figma or Tokens Studio will maintain a source version of their #DesignTokens in those tools' own formats. But, when it's time to send that token data off to other tools they'll "Export as DTCG..."
As a designer/developer, design tokens make perfect sense to me. Much in the same way as variables or functions in code. Shared values reduce repetition and foster consistency.
As an information architect, I’m finding lots of flaws in how they’re created. Poor taxonomies kill the concept.
Nate Baldwin published a well-crafted piece on design tokens that everyone using them should read.
It was waaaay overdue, but I finally updated the Universal Design Tokens (UDT) website to explain what my current ambitions for it are: https://udt.design/
Personal life's super hectic at the moment, so I have (even) less time than usual to spend on stuff like the #DesignTokens Community Group (DTCG) spec (https://tr.designtokens.org/format/), Universal Design Tokens (https://github.com/universal-design-tokens/udt/) and massive backlog of things I want to blog or do talks about. If you're following or interested in any of those things, your patience is much appreciated!