What to do when everyone hates you (and your design system) - Diane Larsen (Converge 2024)

Converge is zeroheight’s annual design systems conference. In 2024 we hosted a two-day, single-track event in Brighton, UK.

SPEAKER:

Diane Larsen

Design System Manager, Tesco

(Day 1/2, talk 03)

TALK: WHAT TO DO WHEN EVERYONE HATES YOU (AND YOUR DESIGN SYSTEM)

Designing and building out Figma libraries are a juicy design exercise. Adoption, in my experience is just hard. We pour our hearts into our work, and we operate (somewhat sub-consciously) under the assumption that our peers will love our product and see the benefits of it as much as we do. However, designers, engineers and product owners are built to challenge assumptions – and when we launched our design system, they did exactly that. In fact, we launched our design system many times over the last 8 years, and we continue to face into challenges surrounding adoption today. When driving design system adoption in a large organisation becomes your focus, and you’ve tried ‘everything’, and your users hate you, (and your design system), what do you do?

CONVERGE 2024:

At Converge '24, we embraced a theme that extended beyond the functional boundaries of design systems—inspiring excellence in design systems. We explored the dynamic ways teams are scoring wins with their design systems. Looking ahead, we also heard about emerging trends and potential strategies that could further elevate our work.

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