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About this talk
If you're a developer who's going to work with designers in any capacity, then chances are high that at some point you'll be presented with a design system. Understanding your way around that system will improve your understanding of how designs and prototypes are meant to be translated into code, as well as making your life easier by providing quick access to resources. A lot of devs hear the word "design" and immediately tune out, but that's a mistake! Learn what's in a design system, how they improve design/dev collaboration, and how you can get the most out of this incredible resource.
Talk Recording
Slides
🌈 Comment below and ask me questions — I might just answer them during my live speaker discussion!
About me
Hi! I'm Kathryn Grayson Nanz. I graduated with a BFA in 2013 and took my first job as junior graphic designer at a small ad agency. While there, my Creative Director warned me to never let anyone find out I could code because I'd be stuck doing it forever. I ignored this and it turns out he was 100% right — but I've never been happier. I currently work as a dev advocate where I help people build web apps in React, design/maintain component libraries, and stop back-end devs from writing CSS.
This on-demand talk is part of CodeLand 2022 — a virtual conference brought to you by CodeNewbie & DEV on June 16 & 17, 2022.
Latest comments (32)
Will definitely look over this talk again as I saw something what I could use in my own daily workflow.
Thanks for such a great talk, Kathryn!
This was very helpful. Thank you so much!
What is the difference between a web designer and a web developer?
More and more, that line is starting to blur! But I'd say that at the root, a web designer isn't expected to know how to code and a web developer isn't expected to know design software (like Figma). There's obviously lots of overlap (more and more with each day, it seems!), but the core skillset is different.
Thanks for your reply.
What would be a good resource for a web developer who wants to learn the basics of web design?
Designer + Programmer. UI/UX + Developer. I feel like as more and more people dive into the programming world, design is becoming an important skill to have. "You don't have to be a master at everything, but it's nice to dabble" really resonated with me, (and everyone on the Discord channel). Thank you for bringing design into light for us!
Hello!! Have you ever had to help settle major design disagreements within a team? Any examples or tips for navigating those waters?
Yep – design is one of those things that everyone will have opinions about, because we all interact with design as part of our everyday lives. I think the best thing you can do is to encourage everyone to step away from gut feelings or knee-jerk reactions and make decisions based on data. What do our users need? What feedback do we have on the design of this feature? Did we make an assumption about this, or do we have data to back it up?
When in doubt...get some users and do some A/B testing!
I love design but don't have a professional background so I was looking forward to this talk very much. That was great, thank you! :)
You talked a bit about component libraries — I'm new to coding and have never used one before. Any tips for putting one together OR working with one?
Absolutely! I'd recommend checking out this blog post I wrote: dev.to/kathryngrayson/case-study-b...
That will go over all the parts of a component library and how to build them. And feel free to reach out if you have any questions at all!
I also have a background in graphic design but doing freelance. I love having that because I feel like I can leverage that aspect of myself and my eye for aesthetic rather than solely having developer skills. How was your experience with having that background when initially looking for a developer position?
These days, I try to use it as a selling point, as much as I can – as you mentioned, it can really be something useful, something else you can bring to the table in ADDITION to your dev skills! When speaking with potential employers, I try to highlight that as much as possible.
When I was first starting, I was almost ashamed of it. I felt a lot of embarrassment over not having a Computer Sciences degree, and I often kind of glossed over design-related things and tried to steer the conversation towards dev topics as much as possible. I wanted people to see me as a developer and take me seriously that way – and at first, I thought my design degree undermined that.
Now, I wish I had embraced my design skills earlier in my career and really leaned into that as the unique selling point that it is. We're designer/dev hybrid unicorns!! That's really awesome
This talk taught me a lot! I always wondered how huge teams manage to make such consistently beautiful designs in their products and I got my answer in this talk! Design tokens, component libraries, style guides, WOW! This is such a systematic and organised way of doing things and also makes me less scared of approaching the front-end as a developer.
Thank you so much for the great talk! @kathryngrayson