The Question: Design System Collaborative Learning

To celebrate 80 episodes, Ben Callahan is joined by Robin Di Capua and Taylor Cashdan, who built the Redwoods Compass, a self-reflective tool for looking at design system health without grading it.

The survey went to 1,118 design system practitioners and received 52 responses to two questions, along with a first-ever homework assignment: a blank spider chart to fill in by instinct. The conversation covers what "health" even means, how the Compass's six categories emerged from Redwoods workshops, why five of those six aren't about the assets themselves, a respondent who realized mid-answer that none of their metrics measured health, and how the Compass keeps all data local.

Show Notes
 00:02 — Welcome to episode 080
 00:15 — Introducing Robin and Taylor
 01:58 — The two survey questions and spider chart homework
 03:56 — What is design system health?
 04:58 — Human health as an analogy
 05:25 — No single indicator of health
 06:49 — Redwoods action groups and the Compass's origins
 07:54 — What the Compass is, and isn't
 08:47 — Six categories and the spider chart
 10:58 — Collecting charts to find patterns
 11:34 — Workshopping the categories with Redwoods
 13:08 — Five of six categories aren't about assets
 13:56 — Shipping a button five hundred times
 15:14 — Nobody wrote "design tokens" on a sticky note
 15:45 — Pivoting from readiness to health
 16:47 — Tracking change over time
 17:14 — A respondent's mid-answer realization
 18:43 — Validating the Compass's framing
 19:47 — Why intangibles need conversation, not scores
 20:50 — One tool among many
 21:41 — How the Compass works locally
 23:00 — zeroheight's maturity model and next week's panel
 24:18 — How to share feedback
 25:11 — Closing

Where to Find the Hosts
Ben Callahan is Founder of Sparkbox (https://sparkbox.com) and Redwoods Design System Community (https://joinredwoods.com). Read his writings, have him present at your event, or engage with him as a coach or consultant at https://bencallahan.com

Robin Di Capua is a designer on the design system team at GetYourGuide in Zurich. Connect with him on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3VYboQI

Taylor Cashdan is a design systems practitioner who has worked across enterprise, startup, and consulting teams. Connect with him on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4cZhbKq

Get the Raw Data
Access the complete survey data from Episode 080 to conduct your own analysis: https://bit.ly/4c18Fx5

Review the FigJam Notes
Dig into the collaborative notes we took as a community during the deep dive: https://bit.ly/4wZmHH7

Join the Conversation
The Question explores design systems topics through community research and deep-dive discussions. Participate in future episodes and contribute to the next survey: https://bit.ly/answerTheQuestion

Music licensed through Soundstripe.
Code: PC5Z0DRTDVMQITVR

What is The Question: Design System Collaborative Learning?

The Question is a collaborative learning podcast about Design Systems. Smart people like you sign up, answer a few niche questions about design systems for each episode, and then we all get together to unpack the data we've gathered. Each week, I'll invite a new co-host to help facilitate the conversation. After the deep dive, the co-host and I record a recap of what we learned. That means, for each episode, you can listen to the recap and the full deep dive!

If you're a design system practitioner, subscribe today (https://bencallahan.com/the-question) to receive an invitation to each episode. This only works if the community joins in!

Stay in learning mode ❤️