Problematic design systems, an NN Group takedown, and what coding languages to learn

Howdy! Welcome to this week’s Whiteboard Roundup.

Bit of an eventful week as I spent Monday having my first ever visit to A&E. After having lots of extreme abdominal pain, I had a CT scan and the lovely folks at the James Paget hospital told me I have a kidney stone.

I can’t say I can recommend having a stone, but my first experience of oramorph - oral morphine - was that it was delicious. I’ll write up the tasting notes soon.

Anyway, I’m fully on the mend, the weather’s nice, and I have some great articles for you this week - so everything’s coming up Milhouse.

Cheers.

Tom HaczewskiDirector, The User Story

News

The problem with design systems

Thanks to Holly who found this article. It’s a little bit old but nicely explores a few issues that many people have with design systems and how to get more out of them.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a design system that’s actually complete, with solid governance, or very effectively used by a business. It’s a difficult thing to get right even though so many digital companies could really do with something to help with consistency and speed of delivery.

Most of the issues stem from the effort involved in providing good design systems and training people in their use - but the best systems are those that are living documents that are maintained as part of the work. It’s a routine and mindset that I’ve only ever seen in a handful of designers across my whole career, and a set of skills that I wish people would prioritise learning as the benefits are so good once a sensible approach is chosen.

Have a read.

Are Nielsen and Norman still relevant?

Jakob Nielsen and Don Norman are often spoken about as design heroes, the grandfathers of usability and good design, and are lauded as the most experienced and knowledgable design experts in the world.

However, they’ve demonstrated problematic views on accessibility, diversity and inclusion, and some designers are also pretty upset about their views on generative AI. Plus, whilst they preach about good UX practices, their NNGroup consulting company carries out very un-UX work that doesn’t help to promote good practice itself.

So are they still relevant in 2024 for most UX designers? Short answer, no. Longer answer, check out this mini-rant. I’d love to know what you think, too.

What coding languages to learn

If you’re thinking about learning to code, which language should you pick? There’s so many, they change all the time, and it’s hard to know what’s going to be useful if you want to actually use them for a project.

Here’s a nice article about the most useful languages to learn right now. I’d always suggest starting with the basic principles of coding languages first, and use something like Codeacademy to get to grips with if statements, functions and variables amongst other things - then, it won’t matter which language you choose as the main bits will all be familiar.

But have a look at this too.

What we’re up to.

💥 Is your company hostile to design?You’ve already missed this, but you should watch it, because it was brilliant fun and you might learn a few things about how to improve the way you work with designers in your team.Watch it here

Check out our previous videosIf you missed my last videos, you can see them all here. Have a look. They’re fun!Replays

Thanks for reading.

Isn’t it nice that the days are longer again?

As you’re here to the end, here’s my thought for the week to leave you on:

See you next time, friends!

Brought to you by Tom Haczewski, director of The User Story. We’re a product strategy, research and UX agency based in Norwich, working with SaaS teams and startups.