DesignOps:
The API of design teams

A presentation at NL Design System - Design Systems Week 2023 by Inayaili León

DesignOps is the glue that keeps a design org together, and the connective tissue that links design to other disciplines across the company, and beyond. Even if your company doesn’t have a formal DesignOps team, this work is likely being done by someone.

At GitHub, we’re thinking about our DesignOps practice as the API that connects designers to designers, and design to the wider company. Just like when designing APIs, we’ve tried things that didn’t work quite well, and have had to ship several breaking changes as we move towards a more stable release.

In this talk, you will learn:

  • How to identify opportunities for DesignOps to be executed more intentionally
  • How to see DesignOps as an opportunity to connect not just designers, but design to other disciplines, and design to the community
  • Some things we’ve tried at GitHub that didn’t work so well — and some that did

Resources

The following resources were mentioned during the presentation or are useful additional information.