Design systems are about humans after all and they should ease collaboration and build bridges between teams. This category rewards design systems that are successful in bringing people together so they can better work together.
Criteria for Submission
- Serves a design system that caters to at least designers and engineers (eg. a UI Library by itself won’t cut it)
- Having it be accessible and usable by design system consumers (ie. you need to have launched it!)
- An active design system that has been updated at least once in the previous 6 months
- The design system must belong to the submitter; it cannot belong to another company or person
Best Collaboration Submission Process
To submit for this category, please provide a case study of your design system documentation. Read through the criteria below, and then hit the button to submit via a Typeform. You'll have the option to either fill in the form, or upload a case study document in PDF or Doc format.
1. Introduction
Start by introducing your organization and the design system you have created. Include a glimpse of the goals and principles of your design system.
2. Solution
The submission requirements would include a detailed description of the design system and how it facilitates collaboration among team members. The submission may also include examples that demonstrate the effectiveness of the design system for collaboration.
👪 Team makeup
Introduce your design system team: job titles (designers, engineers, PO, etc.), dedicated time on the design system (full time, half time, 1/5, etc.) governance model (federated, centralized, hybrid…), roles on the design system (design/tech libraries, writing documentation, maintaining backlog, advocate to other teams, etc). If you have contributors, mention their roles and their involvement in the design system too.
🤝 Team Collaboration
How well does the design system facilitate collaboration among team members, designers, and developers? What have you done to foster community around the design system in your organization? What are the means to achieve this team collaboration: process, communication channels, office hours, forms, meetups, videos…?
🎓 Team Education
Explain how your organization improved their collaboration skills via design system education. Have you set up internal training? What do you do to onboard new designers, developers and product managers (or other roles) to the system? How have you ensured common language?
💬 Testimonials and references
Provide qualitative testimonials or references from team members, stakeholders, or clients that highlight the impact and value of the design system for collaboration.
3. Conclusion
Summarize the key points of your case study and emphasize how you think your design system enhances collaboration with your teams.
4. Resources
If possible, share a link (zeroheight, confluence, notion…) or a file (pdf, ppt…) to give context to your governance strategy, whether that be sample pages, a link to your whole documentation, or supporting data and data visualization.
