Stephen Hay is one of our speakers at UX London 2023. Ahead of his talk — ‘The lies we tell ourselves about design systems’ — we had a chat with him.
Here’s what we asked, and what Stephen told us:
What do you see as the most pervasive myth about design systems?
There are many, and they each seem to bubble up to the surface every so often. One that seems prevalent is the idea that a design system can be “finished”. Good ones are never finished, since they feed off of design work being done in the organisation. For people who see design systems the other way around — as “feeding” the design work — the idea of a “never finished” design system seems ludicrous.
A design system is part of a larger system. Its inputs come from that larger system, not just a small group of individuals working on the design system itself. Its outputs aren’t always complete. Rather, they are tools. Little bits and pieces that can help, but won’t always solve everything. If that were the case, we wouldn’t need designers. We’d only need the system and some training. The art of maintaining a design system is observing what’s happening outside of it.
What are the conditions needed for the most effective use of a design system?
I’ve found that it’s important to have a solid design and alignment process. It’s good to have rules about what to do when designers need something the system doesn’t provide, or when they feel that changes to existing parts of the system should be made. A lot of this is about some clear review rituals, and a visible process for designers so that a next step is always clear. Being open to giving and receiving quality peer feedback is arguably the most important factor.
What are your go-to sources for design inspiration and innovation?
The short and direct answer is, I’m currently really inspired by algorithmic/generative work done by people like Brendan Dawes and Refik Anadol and his team. The slightly more insightful answer is that I’m inspired by graphic design, but in college I was reprimanded for “looking within” the industry too much. I’ve learned to get inspired by unrelated things (or, at least, tangentially related). Art, architecture, photography, music, but even things like programming or software design, nature.
Read a good book. Anything can lead to inspiration. What we call “creative” is often a set of unexpected connections between some otherwise ordinary ideas. You can stimulate these by getting inspiration from any source you can.
Here’s an exercise that’s sure to increase your inspiration the more you practice it: when it occurs to you, look at whatever has your attention at that moment. Pick some aspect of it. Tell yourself that you MUST apply this aspect to some project you’re working on, in some way. Force yourself to do it, no matter how crazy the idea. It might take a few tries, but you’ll be amazed.
And finally, what are you currently listening to, reading or watching?
The song I’ve got on repeat this week is Nils Hoffman’s “Once in a Blue Moon”. But before that it was Barney Artist and Tom Misch’s “Stay Close”. So I’m all over the place.
I tend to read multiple books at once, so I can read depending on my mood. I recently finished Rory Miller’s “Meditations on Violence”, Thomas Nagel’s tiny book “What Does It All Mean” (which was recommended to me), and John Cleese’s — also tiny — book “Creativity: a Short and Cheerful Guide”. I’m currently reading Henning Nelms’ “Thinking with a Pencil”, which is almost more of a workbook, so I’ll probably put that down for Julia Galef’s “The Scout Mindset”, which is calling my name from the bookshelf. I read a LOT because I love reading, so this list is constantly changing.
I don’t generally don’t watch TV, but I do like movies and some series. Those are usually escapist tools for me, so they should generally be fun (though I’m in for the occasional obtuse art film). I recently rewatched the Jason Bourne films. :)
You can see Stephen speak at UX London 2023, on 22–23 June, at Tobacco Dock, London.
