Design Systems Podcast

Join Chris Strahl and Maya Hampton as they unpack the power of usage data and its pivotal role in driving adoption, efficiency, and quality. Dive deep, discover the real value of design systems, and see how every component counts!

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Design System Roadmap & Strategy for the Enterprise’ on November 29th.

Guest

Maya is the Senior Digital Product Manager for Design Systems at REI, where she leads a cross-functional team on a mission to build a robust foundation for the co-op's digital ecosystem. You can follow her work on the Cedar Design System at https://cedar.rei.com/

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Join Chris Strahl and JJ Rogers, as they explore the challenges and triumphs of harmonizing diverse products at Watermark, highlighting how a harmonized ecosystem elevates user experience and ensures consistent design across all platforms.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Check out our upcoming events here.

Guest

JJ Rogers serves as Director of Product Design at Watermark, a software provider helping institutions engage educators and learners to improve institutional effectiveness, program quality, and student learning. He brings a wealth of experience from his work in design consultancies to the mergers and acquisitions space, creating a unified, holistic suite of products for 1700+ higher ed institutions.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Join Chris Strahl, Kevin Goldman, and Sierre Wolfkostin as they sit down to explore the Fido Alliance's mission of revolutionizing online authentication by eliminating traditional passwords and replacing them with secure and user-friendly passkeys. Discover how these principles, tested and proven, are set to transform user experiences and incentivize the widespread use of passkeys, offering a glimpse into the future of design systems.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘What Really Matters in Design Systems’ on October 25th.

Guests

Kevin is the Chief Experience Officer at Trusona where he helped create the Trusona Authentication Cloud — a passkey-as-a-service platform, offering the simplest, quickest, and lowest cost way to increase website engagement with passkeys. Prior to Trusona, Kevin founded the user experience (UX) consulting firm, 29th Drive, which was acquired three years later. Kevin serves as a FIDO Alliance Board member. He chartered and is Chair of the FIDO Alliance UX Working Group comprised of UX professionals from 31 global brands. Outside of work, he likes quality time with his kids, motorcycle track riding, forging knives, and time away from the fragile glowing screen.

Sierre is a product designer based in Ann Arbor, MI. With a learning mindset and a focus on understanding people, she has helped make Duo Security’s authentication experience both easier and more secure for all. Most recently, she led design for the Universal Prompt: a ground up UX and technical redesign of Duo’s core 2FA product. She now works to help kill the password and further improve our industry’s standards for authentication in partnership with the FIDO Alliance. Sierre holds degrees in UX design and business from the University of Michigan. In her free time, she enjoys writing non-fiction, reading books, and greeting the neighborhood cats.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris Strahl sits with Jay Smith as they unravel the secrets of REI's design system consistency. Uncover how their groundbreaking approach to design, colors, and tokens is reshaping standards. With an eco-friendly twist: for every contribution to the system, trees are planted. As the system grows, so does a forest.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘What Really Matters in Design Systems’ on October 25th.

Guest

Jay Smith is a systems thinker who loves building clever, durable solutions to root-cause problems. A Principal Product Designer at REI, he’s been creating and curating the decisions used by teams across the nation’s largest consumer cooperative for over a decade.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris Strahl sits with Jamie Totten from Klue and they unpack the unique challenges and benefits of implementing a design system in a fast-paced startup. Drawing inspiration from Spotify's "guild format", they emphasize the importance of voluntary commitment, maintaining positivity and on making the most with limited resources.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘What Really Matters in Design Systems’ on October 25th.

Guest

Jamie Totten is a UX Engineer at Klue, where he facilitates and coordinates the Design System Guild efforts, and hopes to someday turn the guild into a real team. Embedded on the Design team, he supports product and engineering teams with their features. He loves systems thinking, design, and engineering. He also loves clean, well structured code, and thoughtful design that solves human problems.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris Strahl sits with Juli Sombat from Spotify and Jason Pamental from Chewy as they unravel the evolution of digital typography, emphasizing the shift from dictation to suggestion. They explore the dynamic between designers and users and the transformative power of user customization.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘What Really Matters in Design Systems’ on October 25th.

Guests

Juli Sombat is the design lead for Encore, Spotify’s family of design systems. Her passion for cross-functional collaboration and her deep understanding of the principles and practices that underpin successful design systems help her evangelize for systems thinking at all levels. Prior to Encore, she led the multi-brand design system at Conde Nast.

Jason Pamental is a Principal Designer at Chewy working on their design system, an Invited Expert on the W3C’s Web Fonts Working Group, and a deeply nerdy fan of variable fonts and web typography. Or just another hack with a camera phone, walking around at sunrise posting pictures of a really photogenic collie.

Link to the Monotype article Jason wrote: https://labs.monotype.com/caseco-a-case-for-variable-fonts-2d86960a0c19

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris Strahl sits with Tony Pantello and Chris Henke who tackle the age-old conflict between design and development. They discuss harnessing the power of design systems to streamline collaboration, conquer inefficiency, and unlock the true potential of their teams.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘What Really Matters in Design Systems’ on October 25th.

Guest

Tony Pantello is a Senior UI/UX Designer and Product Design Team Lead at Accutech Systems based in Muncie, IN. He was the catalyst behind the creation of Accutech’s design system and is privileged to guide a small but mighty team building out Accutech’s product design discipline. He firmly believes that the waffle is the best sugary breakfast entree and can talk for days about his shark tank business ideas.

Chris Henke is a Senior UI/UX Developer on the Product Design team at Accutech Systems Inc. based in Muncie, IN. He helped build the design system at Accutech and is helping bring a focus to the front-end development and user experience of Accutech products.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris Strahl and Billea Breen explore the essential interaction between design and development to craft a flawless user experience, offering tactics to maintain consistency and enhance workflows.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘What Really Matters in Design Systems’ on October 25th.

Guest

Meet Billea, the Senior UX Designer at Monster who weaves tech magic into seamless user experiences. With a knack for bridging design and development and a passion for strong foundations, she crafts digital solutions that resonate with all users.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris Strahl and Mark Reynolyds navigate the ever-changing world of design systems, exploring the idea that design and engineering roles will become more aligned in the near future.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Theming in Complex Ecosystems’ with Donnie D’Amato on August 30th.

Guest

Mark Reynolds is a design systems expert who works with enterprise organisations to set up successful design system practices. He is a consultant, educator and mentor in this space and helps elevate the benefits of design systems across the industry.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris Strahl talks with Kevin Broich about his transition from backend developer to designer at Cisco. Kevin shares insights on creating a crucial CSS-based UI kit for Cisco's major rebranding phase and more.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Theming in Complex Ecosystems’ with Donnie D’Amato on August 30th.

Guest

Kevin Broich, Design Systems advocate. Experienced front-end architect, developer, designer and UI evangelist. I live at the intersection of design and engineering. Always looking for ways to increase efficiency, reduce friction, and innovate with new tools, automation and processes.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.