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€549 ^.00 Register for this workshop → Get a single workshop, or bundle with a conference.

A design system can be seen as both a product consumed by other teams as well as a platform for organizations to make and share decisions and features. As such, system leaders and contributors must know how to approach making, maintaining, and promoting the system across an enterprise for it to be successful.

Over the course of a full day, we’ll cover techniques and nuances of these processes across different shapes and sizes of systems so that designers and developers can make a robust, high-quality system together.

In This Workshop, You’ll Learn:

Sessions will engage participants in hands-on activities, spark new ideas, and moderate challenging conversations so your team can deliver: - Features like UI components made by designers and developers - Generations of a complete library, launched with fanfare - Regular, incremental releases with predictable communications - Special Initiatives to grow and evolve practices, support and infrastructure

Through these concepts, we’ll dig into considerations of a system’s: - Vision and mission - Team and community models - Communications and messaging - Support channels for users and contributors - Success measurements

Why You Should Attend

This workshop lays a foundation and challenges you to consider if your system program is robust, flexible, and inclusive enough. We’ll explore the processes that matter most – processes to start a system, define big bets, develop each feature, and release and communicate changes – and when to invest in each to build a successful program. Participants will explore many models, imagine new processes, share their own experiences, and inspire each other.

Nathan has contributed to or consulted with over 60 design systems over his career, including leading teams through major releases at Morningstar, Verizon, Capital One, Target, Fidelity, Marriott and many more. He’ll combine deep knowledge with a nuanced understanding of how systems work in companies of varying scale, business types, and organization models.

Who Should Attend

Design systems are best as a multidisciplinary pursuit. Therefore, the workshop is aimed at designers, engineers, product owners, managers, and leaders setting up or optimizing how to operate a design system at scale.

The workshop assumes participants are familiar with design systems fundamentals: what they are, what they offer, who makes and uses them, and why they matter. Materials are relevant to anyone planning to engage a community, decide what to build, and grow a system over time.

What Hardware/Software Do You Need?

To get the most out of the workshop, you’ll need access to Figjam (for hands-on activities). You will not use design tools (such as in Figma or Sketch) or code in a code editor. Instead, activities will be collaborative in a team or full classroom setting using Figjam.

About Nathan

Founder and design systems consultant at Directed Edges. He’s passionate about information architecture, UX, front-end dev and design systems. He wrote Modular Web Design in 2009, blogs frequently on Medium.com today, and speaks regularly at events worldwide.

Time & Location

This full-day workshop will take place the day after SmashingConf. The workshop will be running from 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM on Thursday, October 31.

The workshop is happening at Vestar, Lamorinierestraat 53, 2018 Antwerpen. Google Maps

Schedule for Thursday, October 31

9:00 AM – Doors open, Registration
9:30 AM – Introduction & Kick-off
11:00 AM – Coffee Break
1:00 PM – Lunch
2:00 PM – Afternoon Session
3:30 PM – Coffee Break
5:30 PM – The End

Save 100 EUR when signing up for the conference and a workshop!