Posts in ‘link’ Category

Here’s a pretty damning read about LLMs’ impact on the web. Just how SEO produced an extremely lucrative-yet-icky industry, optimizing web content for AI models seems inevitable. SEO will morph into LLMO: large-language-model optimization, the incipient industry of manipulating AI-generated […]

There have been tons of design system roundup sites over the years, but The Component Gallery  by Iain Bean is particularly well designed and fun.

Here’s my pal and frequent collaborator TJ Pitre with The Value of Design Tokens in Modern Web Development. TJ’s post is a good overview of design tokens and the various aspects of working with them in a web development workflow.

I had a great chat with Chris Strahl on the Design Systems Podcast, and we covered a lot of ground! We sit down with Brad Frost, a leading voice in design systems. Together, we explore the critical intersection between adaptable […]

I’m not a “[full-stack] developer”, regardless of what my last job title says. I’m not even a front-end developer, thanks to the JavaScript–industrial complex. I’m a front-of-the-front-end developer, but that’s too long. So, I’m a web designer. And I also […]

If you’ve dabbled in design systems then you’re no doubt familiar with Brad Frost and atomic design. He’s laid the foundation for design systems teams around the world. So in this discussion we talk about the types of challenges he […]

Here are some beautiful words from Jeremy. So write! Share! Publish! But you know what? Screw what the world needs. If we’re going to be hardnosed about this, then the world doesn’t need any more books. The world doesn’t need […]

Luke and Michelle dive into the pros and cons of the idea of a global design system.

As we speak, the battle that platforms are fighting is against generative spam, a cartoonish and obvious threat of outright nonsense, meaningless chum that can and should (and likely will) be stopped. In the process, they’re failing to see that […]

I was recently a guest on the CodingCatDev podcast, where we covered a lot of ground around design systems, including the design system ecosystem, the idea of a Global Design System, and many of the challenges teams face when creating […]

As organizations race to deliver best-in-class digital experiences to their customers, the ability to innovate has become essential. Building a strong foundation is no longer the end-all-be-all to success; it’s also the ability to reimagine what’s possible tomorrow that truly […]

Why do we see so little reuse of web UI across organizations? Web projects freely use countless open libraries from npm and elsewhere, but it’s rare to find high-quality web UI code which is flexible and reliable enough for immediate […]

What’s this? Some Heydon Pickering commentary on utility-first CSS? Allow me to fetch my popcorn.

And then she asked an interesting question: Is it art if it wasn’t your idea? I was glad to answer “yes,” and explain to her why — that all art is a copy of something — though I wish I’d had the presence of […]

I love me some Vulfpeck. Especially the music. But also the aesthetic and really the whole package. This piece of commentary is great for a number of reasons, including his sensible proposed change in business model around music. But the […]

Here’s Chris with some excellent thoughts on the idea of a Global Design System. Between this post and our ShopTalk Show conversation, there’s some great stuff to respond to! Chris spells out a lot of tough questions and challenges around […]

I love this entire post from Dave, which matches my experience helping scores of organizations navigate their design system efforts. Design systems are a hard sell on their own, as Dave explains: There’s no particular “hair on fire” problem that […]

Hooo boy, this is great! I had a fantastic time on the ShopTalk Show talking about the need for a Global Design System. It was a great conversation with two people that I feel fundamentally get it; so it was […]

The most crucial mistake in the collaboration between designers and engineers happens when we conflate this division of tools with a need for a strong division of labor. Treating design and engineering as two completely separate processes leads to an […]

I found this to be incredibly captivating.

This is freaking wild: Retired country maths teacher Robert Martiensen created thousands of artworks in secret. Dude created over 7,000 works of art without telling anybody. That blows my mind.

I don’t know how else to answer this, besides: the gendering of design as women’s work is why people don’t use the title “web designer” anymore. It’s been belittled and othered away. It’s why we’ve split that web design role […]

This web site presents one reference glyph and basic information for each of the world’s writing systems. Source: The World’s Writing Systems

There is so much beautiful wisdom in this: 17 Life-Learnings from 17 Years of The Marginalian. I’ve been following Maria Popova for years, and have always love the way she’s used hyperlinks to weave through lines across many voices, perspectives, […]

If all the company’s plastic from 2021 were converted into plastic air pillows — the inflated pouches inserted in some Amazon packages to reduce shifting during transit — and laid side by side, Miller said it would circle the globe more […]

Footer — The only footer gallery on earth. This gives me all the web design gallery nostalgic feels.

This is so cool; I found this image on Facebook that shows the Moog Rogue Tina Weymouth used on Talking Heads’ incredible Stop Making Sense concert film. It’s fascinating to see the song presets laid out using tape and shapes […]

Here’s my partner Josh Clark with an absolute barn-burner of an article: Ship Faster by Building Design Systems Slower. In our work at Big Medium, we’ve guided dozens of design system teams who have felt the stress of being perceived as […]

I’m definitely not trying to single this particular article, but it’s a common misconception about atomic design that’s persisted over the years: Starting Point: The initial stage of Atomic design begins with the smallest design elements, such as buttons, labels, […]

Getting support for accessibility efforts isn’t easy. There are many accessibility myths, wrong assumptions and expectations that make accessibility look like a complex, expensive and time-consuming project. Let’s fix that! Below are some practical techniques that has been working well […]