Patterns Podcast

Latest Episodes:

93. Nathan Curtis, Co-founder of EightShapes: Balancing reuse and customization in UI Design Dec 13, 2023

Show notes

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

Chris Strahl sits with Nathan Curtis as he explores the delicate balance between reusing existing components and creating customized solutions in UI design. They unpack the complexities of design systems, touching on everything from color selection to ensuring functional and aesthetic harmony, providing insights on principled design choices in a world where reuse and customization are equally important.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Check out our upcoming events here.

Guest

Nathan co-founded EightShapes with Dan Brown near Washington, DC in 2006. He’s passionate about information architecture, user experience design, and front end development, and leads and consults with design systems teams to chart a strategic path and optimize operations. He wrote Modular Web Design in 2009, blogs about design systems regularly, and speaks at events worldwide.

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.

92. Lisa Apers Independent Designer and Researcher: Tailoring UIs with brainwaves for personalized user experiences Nov 30, 2023

Show notes

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

Join Chris Strahl as he sits with Lisa Apers, a visionary in UI design, as she presents her innovative research on brainwave-responsive user interfaces. Explore how EEG sensors integrated into UIs can revolutionize our digital experiences, creating interfaces that dynamically adapt to individual cognitive states and daily activities.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Check out our upcoming events here.

Guest

I’m an independent designer and researcher. Partnering with change makers, I craft scalable digital experiences through various services across brand, web and product design.

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.

91. Designing diversity: Crafting tiered systems for a global market with Tim Banker at Slalom Consulting Nov 16, 2023

Show notes

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

Join Chris Strahl and Tim Banker on an exciting dive into the world of innovative design systems. They explore the creation of tailored solutions for a diverse range of global markets, showcasing how a 'system of systems' approach can meet various needs, from marketing to transactional experiences. Get ready to transcend the one-size-fits-all model and redefine design flexibility.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Guest

Tim Banker serves as Senior Director of Global Experience Design at Slalom Consulting. He specializes in helping companies on their journey toward design at scale, with a focus on design systems, design & research operations, and enterprise accessibility strategy.

Resources:

https://erinmeyer.com/books/the-culture-map/
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/crosscultural-design/
https://www.w3.org/blog/international/
https://www.w3.org/TR/international-specs/
https://uxknowledgebase.com/internationalization-localization-d84795b7962c
https://rtlstyling.com/
https://systems-of-harm.fireside.fm/

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.

90. The innovation triad: Needs, coverage and adoption with Alex Wilson and Jon Reidy at T. Rowe Price Nov 09, 2023

Show notes

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

Join Chris Strahl as he sits with Alex Wilson and Jon Reidy as they discuss their approach to evolving with community demands at T. Rowe Price. Dive into the dynamic process of identifying what drives your customers, crafting solutions that resonate, and ensuring widespread adoption of these innovations.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Guest

Alex is the Engineering Manager and Technical Lead of the Design System at T. Rowe Price. He specializes in leveraging web standards to craft performant, accessible, and interoperable components that enhance both user and developer experiences.

Jon is a Design System leader at T. Rowe Price. He previously led the Design System at HSBC and has been specializing in this space for around 8 years.

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.

89. Metrics matter: Harnessing usage data for adoption, coverage, efficiency, and quality with Maya Hampton at REI Nov 01, 2023

Show notes

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

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.

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.

88. Beyond isolation: Harmonizing products in a design ecosystem with JJ Rogers at Watermark Oct 26, 2023

Show notes

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

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.

87. Designing success: Crafting principles for passkey adoption with Kevin Goldman and Sierre Wolfkostin at FIDO Alliance Oct 18, 2023

Show notes

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

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.

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.

86. From consistency to contribution: How design systems grow trees with Jay Smith at REI Oct 04, 2023

Show notes

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

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.

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.

85. Driving speed and consistency: The power of design systems in startups with Jamie Totten at Klue Sep 27, 2023

Show notes

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

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.

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.

84. Digital typography: Suggesting, not dictating with Juli Sombat at Spotify and Jason Pamental at Chewy Sep 21, 2023

Show notes

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

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.

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.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected