Stop doing design system projects

Your design system is not a project.

When new designers and developers join forces to evolve your design system it is tempting to start working in projects. You might even create some epics and sprints to move user stories from your backlog in a Scrum environment. …

Why design systems fail and how to make them work in 2020

After shutting down our first design system late 2018 we built a new and improved design system from the ground up.

Back in 2018, when I started my job at WebNL, I was asked to look into ways to improve the bridge between design and development within our company. I came up with a system that automatically extracted design tokens from Sketch designs and translated them into SCSS variables. …

Cialdini at the Christmas table

Persuasion and influence are all around at Christmas. In fact, we can use Cialdinis principles of influence to find out why the user experience of Christmas is almost always a success.

In the Netherlands, we have a holiday called Saint Nicholas (or Sinterklaas). It’s very much like Christmas nowadays. We like to say that the idea of Santa Claus was stolen from Saint Nicholas, but there has probably been some interchange of different concepts and ideas over the years.

Anyway, the…

What product designers can learn from comic art

As product designers we are always fixing problems, creating stuff that other people need. Let’s take a step back and see how we can bring a little art into our daily work.

A few years back I did an interview with a creator outside of the design field as part of an assignment. I also had to write an essay about how their workflow differed from my workflow as a product designer.

When I got the assignment I just knew I had…

Don’t feel bad, user test your competitors

Use competitive usability tests to improve your own product.

You don’t have to copy your competitors, or ignore them instead. By using two user testing methods explained in this article, you can see what your competitors are doing right and wrong instantly to start learning from them.

When I started my career in UX, people were always telling me…

The golden filter of UX design

A new model for creating human centered UX design.

This article is the second part in a series about design guidelines. Also read part one about design guidelines and part three about organizing a workshop.

To create design guidelines for human centered design, we will need to take a look at the context of our design problems. Without understanding…

Organizing a design guidelines workshop

Create consensus together in a quick workshop.

This article is the third part in a series about design guidelines. Also read part one about design guidelines and part two about the golden filter of UX design.

A while ago I created a workshop for a project in order to align stakeholders on design guidelines. The workshop was…

Design guidelines: how I get design done

Align stakeholders and designers by creating design guidelines.

This article is the first part in a series about design guidelines. Also read part two about the golden filter of ux design and part three about organizing a workshop.

A while ago I found myself in need of creating design guidelines. I was in a meeting about a project…

Why design systems fail, and how to make them work

For a short period of time I worked on a design system at WebNL, an agency specialised in web design, development and marketing based in the Netherlands. Our design system was aimed at improving the bridge between the design and development of the products we’re making.

In this blog I…