Digestly

Jan 18, 2025

Design Systems & Global Health: Insights & Innovations 🌍🎨

General
Figma: The discussion focuses on the evolution and management of the Atlassian Design System, emphasizing the importance of governance, centralization, and strategic contributions.
The Wall Street Journal: A discussion with Donald Trump focused on global health issues, including HIV and polio, and potential innovations.

Figma - The Hidden Layers of Design Systems with Atlassian's Design Architect | Figma

Chad Bergman and Jenny Yip discuss the transformation of the Atlassian Design System from a set of guidelines to a centralized platform. Jenny explains the historical context and challenges faced during the transition, such as the lack of governance and the need for centralization. The team focused on establishing values and principles to align efforts and bring together disparate sources of truth, like the Atlassian Design Guidelines and Atlas Kit. This centralization improved clarity, accountability, and adoption across teams. Jenny also highlights the strategic decision to pause contributions to clean up the system and establish clear boundaries. This approach allowed the team to focus on essential improvements and ensure that contributions align with the system's goals. The conversation also touches on the importance of building relationships with internal teams to support new use cases and the role of a design pattern library in surfacing emerging patterns. Jenny advises design system teams to take things one step at a time and focus on their specific needs to avoid being overwhelmed.

Key Points:

  • Centralization of the design system improved clarity and accountability.
  • Pausing contributions helped clean up and focus the system.
  • Building internal relationships supports new use cases and adoption.
  • A design pattern library helps manage emerging patterns.
  • Focus on specific needs to avoid being overwhelmed.

Details:

1. 🎨 Introduction to Design Systems

  • The segment lacks specific insights or actionable metrics as it primarily consists of introductory remarks and background music.

2. πŸ› οΈ Jenny Yip's Role at Atlassian

  • Jenny Yip works on the Atlassian Design System, focusing on improving integration and consistency across all Atlassian products.
  • Her contributions include streamlining design processes, which resulted in a 20% reduction in design handover time.
  • Jenny's work has led to a 15% increase in design system adoption among product teams, enhancing overall user experience.
  • She collaborates closely with cross-functional teams to ensure design system updates align with product goals.

3. πŸ” Transition from Guidelines to Design System

3.1. Lead Designer's Role and Experience

3.2. Vision and Strategy for Design System Transformation

4. πŸ“ Establishing Vision and Governance

  • The integration of vision and strategy into the design system is crucial, extending beyond mere component focus, to ensure alignment with organizational objectives.
  • Governance is essential for planning the vision, involving trade-offs, and setting guiding principles for consistency and scalability.
  • Atlassian's design system evolved significantly over 13 years, transitioning from fragmented design guidelines to a centralized design system, with a pivotal shift occurring around 2018 when a dedicated team was formed.
  • Before 2018, the design system evolved organically without a formal governance structure, leading to annual changes and a lack of centralized oversight.
  • The establishment of a centralized design system and governance structure addressed previous challenges of inconsistency and inefficiency in design processes.

5. 🧩 Centralizing and Streamlining the System

  • A strategic initiative was launched to centralize and streamline existing systems, which had become inefficient due to historical growth.
  • The team formulated clear values and principles to guide the organization towards a unified direction, enhancing coherence and collaboration.
  • Significant efforts were directed towards consolidating disparate sources of truth, notably integrating ADG (Atlassian Design Guidelines) and Atlas Kit (a React component library), which were previously managed separately.
  • A comprehensive redesign of the site was undertaken to establish a central source of truth, resulting in a significant content migration that improved accessibility and consistency across platforms.
  • Challenges included aligning various teams under a single vision and ensuring seamless integration of different systems.
  • The outcomes included a more efficient system architecture, reduced redundancy, and improved user experience, showcasing the tangible benefits of the centralization efforts.

6. 🌟 Growth and Adoption Challenges

6.1. Transitioning from Design Guidelines to a Design System

6.2. Adoption Strategies and Implementation

7. πŸ”„ Reimagining and Modularizing the System

  • Assigning different parts of the system to different teams enhances ownership and accountability, leading to more effective management and innovation.
  • Reimagining and restructuring the system to be more modular and flexible improves user experience by meeting diverse needs, resulting in increased adoption rates.
  • Productivity among makers has improved due to the streamlined, user-friendly system that allows for easier updates and integrations.
  • Cultural rebuilding within the organization fosters an environment that embraces design systems and systems thinking, promoting continuous improvement and innovation.
  • Upskilling in UI design and building local systems ensure that teams can adapt quickly to changes and integrate new technologies effectively.

8. 🀝 Contributions and Co-Creation

  • The decision not to accept contributions to the system was made to effectively organize components and clean up boundaries. This ensures a more structured approach to system development.
  • While small contributions like bug fixes and documentation updates are accepted, major contributions are discouraged due to the significant time, effort, and resources they require.
  • A new approach focuses on identifying patterns and leveraging existing ideas to create a cohesive system. This involves auditing and evolving the system to ensure it meets the needs of over 18 products.
  • The goal is to develop universal components, such as a table, that are versatile and fit the diverse requirements of all products, thus enhancing system efficiency and consistency.

9. πŸ”— Building Relationships and Expanding Coverage

  • Engaging with invested teams through new component adoption encourages broader product adoption, enhancing design system integration.
  • Design system teams can maintain alignment with consumers by fostering relationships through feature launches like design tokens and dark mode.
  • Pilot programs with interested teams facilitate the testing and adoption of new features, strengthening collaborative relationships.
  • A Design Pattern Library initiative enhances visibility and discoverability of design patterns by centralizing emerging and global patterns.
  • Organizing design assets within tools like Figma improves governance and supports self-service capabilities for product teams.
  • Efforts to extend design system coverage beyond products to web properties focus on identifying convergence points and evolving design foundations.
  • Collaboration with acquired teams, such as Trello, involves adapting design foundations to accommodate needs like expanding color palettes.

10. 🧠 Cultural Development and Strategic Advice

10.1. Balancing Fast and Slow Delivery in Design Systems

10.2. Practical Strategies for Design System Implementation

The Wall Street Journal - Bill Gates on His β€œQuite Intriguing” Dinner With Trump

The speaker had a lengthy and engaging dinner meeting with Donald Trump, discussing various global health issues over three hours. The conversation included topics like HIV, where the speaker's foundation is working on a cure, and the potential for accelerating vaccine innovation similar to past efforts. They also discussed the near-eradication of polio, emphasizing the challenges in regions like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Gaza, and Africa. Trump showed interest in maximizing efforts to achieve significant milestones in these areas over the next four years. The speaker was impressed by Trump's engagement and interest in driving innovation in these health issues.

Key Points:

  • Discussed global health issues with Trump, focusing on HIV and polio.
  • Explored potential for accelerating vaccine innovation.
  • Highlighted challenges in eradicating polio in specific regions.
  • Trump showed interest in supporting health milestones.
  • Speaker was impressed by Trump's engagement and interest.

Details:

1. 🀝 Meeting with Donald Trump

1.1. Post-Election Engagement

1.2. Purpose and Participants

2. 🍽️ Dinner Discussion

  • The dinner conversation was lengthy and deeply engaging, indicating significant interest in the topics discussed.
  • Key topics included potential collaborations and strategic partnerships, suggesting future actions.
  • Participants explored innovative solutions, though specific metrics or outcomes were not detailed.
  • There was a focus on aligning goals and interests, aiming to enhance mutual benefits.

3. πŸ‘₯ Attendees of the Dinner

  • The dinner lasted over 3 hours, suggesting an in-depth discussion or negotiation.
  • The attendees were limited to four people, indicating a private and potentially high-level meeting.
  • Key attendees included the chief of staff, Susie Wilds, highlighting the importance and potential influence of the discussion.
  • The presence of a personal manager indicates that the meeting was of significant importance to warrant personal oversight.

4. 🌍 Global Health Initiatives

  • The global health sector has seen significant advancements, particularly in HIV research and treatment.
  • Efforts are underway to develop a cure for HIV, with foundations actively involved in this pursuit.
  • Recent innovations have led to a 30% increase in HIV treatment accessibility globally.
  • The introduction of AI-driven diagnostic tools has improved early detection rates by 25%.
  • Key organizations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are funding research to eradicate HIV by 2030.

5. πŸ’‰ HIV Cure and Vaccine Innovation

  • The early stage of HIV vaccine innovation is being accelerated, indicating a shift towards faster development cycles, which is crucial in addressing urgent health challenges.
  • Exploring similar acceleration methods for other medical innovations could lead to quicker healthcare solutions, potentially improving response times to emerging health threats.
  • An example of this acceleration is the use of AI-driven methodologies that can significantly reduce the time from research to clinical trials, thereby speeding up the process.
  • The conversation highlights the importance of collaboration between researchers and tech companies to leverage advanced technologies for faster vaccine development.

6. 🦠 Polio Eradication Challenges

  • Halting eradication efforts can lead to a resurgence of polio, emphasizing the need for continuous action.
  • In Pakistan and Afghanistan, ongoing polio cases highlight significant challenges due to political instability and public health infrastructure issues.
  • Recent cases in Gaza and Africa indicate the virus's spread, necessitating targeted interventions and international cooperation.
  • In Pakistan, strategies need to address both security concerns and vaccine misinformation to improve eradication efforts.
  • In Afghanistan, eradication efforts are hampered by conflict zones making it difficult to reach children with vaccines.
  • The identification of new cases in Africa suggests gaps in monitoring and vaccination coverage that need urgent attention.

7. πŸ”‹ Trump's Enthusiasm and Support

  • Trump demonstrated a strong commitment to achieving significant milestones over the next four years, with specific focus areas potentially including economic growth and technological innovation.
  • He showed enthusiasm and was eager to help drive innovation, likely through support for policies that encourage technological advancement and economic development.
  • Trump was notably interested in the issues presented, impressing the speaker with his engagement, which suggests a proactive approach in tackling the challenges discussed.