Ben Callahan is joined by Robin Di Capua and Taylor Cashdan, members of the Redwoods Design System Community who spent nearly a year building the Redwoods Compass. Robin has worked as a designer since 2009, has focused on systems since 2016, and recently joined the design system team at GetYourGuide in Zurich. Taylor has spent six years as a systems practitioner across enterprise, startup, and consulting teams.
The survey went to more than 1,100 practitioners and received 52 responses to two questions, plus a spider chart homework assignment. During the session, participants took the Compass live and compared their gut-check charts with its results. The conversation covers voluntary adoption versus mandates, surprising gaps between charts, legacy systems in the public sector, taking the Compass as a team, and where community fits in the framework.
Show Notes
00:04 — Welcome and sponsors
01:09 — zeroheight's maturity model and the Redwoods Compass
02:47 — The survey questions and spider chart homework
05:05 — "None tell me whether the programme is healthy"
05:58 — Origin story: from readiness to health
07:25 — The six Compass categories
09:44 — Setting up the FigJam exercise
12:32 — Taking the Compass: Authority
14:55 — Alignment
17:44 — Resource Lifecycle
19:06 — People
21:02 — Investment
21:33 — Infrastructure
23:54 — Defining design system health
24:31 — Voluntary use and fit as health signals
25:28 — Jesse Gardner on resisting a mandate at New York State
27:14 — Comparing spider charts
30:06 — Leo Vogel on ChatGPT's estimate vs. the Compass
30:58 — Mike Polowick on a drastic gap in People
33:34 — Jesse Gardner on legacy sites and public sector funding
34:54 — Taking the Compass as a team
37:43 — System health vs. effectiveness for your product
39:09 — Using divergence to surface expectations
40:35 — "Too busy" as unrecorded health work
41:59 — Jeremy on quick vs. considered answers
44:59 — A memorable survey answer and four acquisitions
45:49 — Mike Polowick on where community fits
48:19 — zeroheight panel and wrap-up
Robin Di Capua is a designer on the design system team at GetYourGuide in Zurich. Connect with him on LinkedIn:
https://bit.ly/3VYboQITaylor Cashdan is a design systems practitioner who has worked across enterprise, startup, and consulting teams. Connect with him on LinkedIn:
https://bit.ly/4cZhbKqGet the Raw Data Access the complete survey data from Episode 080 to conduct your own analysis:
https://bit.ly/4c18Fx5 Review the FigJam NotesDig into the collaborative notes we took as a community during the deep dive:
https://bit.ly/4wZmHH7 Join the ConversationThe 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/answerTheQuestionMusic 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!
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