style guide best practices

STYLE GUIDES@brad_frost

Great news, team. We got the green light to redesign the homepage.

That’s great news, boss!

Yeah, the current homepage is super ugly!

Yeah and don’t even ask about the code quality lol.

Exciting! It will be great to do things right this time.

Yeah we’re going to use BEM…

And the visuals will be clean and flat.

Yeah and we’re definitely looking into React.js

And maybe this will give us the chance to finally

migrate to a new CMS.

Grunt.

Make it so.

LATHER. RINSE. REPEAT.

global

north america

latin america

chile

europe

india

australia

china

hong kong

taiwan

huge jerk.

We don’t have time for cohesion and continuity!

We’re too busy DISRUPTING!

ONE BRAND

MOREDEVICESENVIRONMENTS

PEOPLELANGUAGES

CONTENT

BROWSERS

MEDIUMSCOUNTRIES

SCREENSIZES

FEATURESPRODUCTSSERVICESFUNCTIONALITY

CUSTOMERSFORMATS

USERS

FORMFACTORSCONTEXTS

STYLE GUIDES

http://cargocollective.com/mcalkins/Walmart-brand-book-design

brand.wvu.edu

BRAND STYLE GUIDES๏ Purpose: establish guidelines for using core brand assets ๏ Audience: the entire organization, vendors and anyone

making use of brand assets ๏ Can include: Logos, typography, color palette, file templates,

assets, downloads, etc

https://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/

DESIGN LANGUAGE GUIDELINES๏ Purpose: establish a design language for cohesive user

experience across a suite of products and services ๏ Audience: anyone creating user experiences for the

organization, mostly designers ๏ Can include: design principles, brand overlap, aesthetics, ux

principles, motion, etc

voiceandtone.com

VOICE AND TONE GUIDELINES๏ Purpose: establish and encourage a cohesive, appropriate

tone across the entire user experience ๏ Audience: content creators and editors, anyone writing copy

for the brand ๏ Can include: interface copy, marketing, documentation, blog

posts, legal, alerts, etc

http://www.economist.com/styleguide/

http://www.dal.ca/webteam/web_style_guide/writing_for_the_web.html

WRITING STYLE GUIDES๏ Purpose: establish and encourage a cohesive writing style

across all properties ๏ Audience: content creators and editors, anyone writing copy

for the brand ๏ Can include: grammar, proper content structure, general

writing best practices

code block

.thisishowwedoit {

}

CSS SYNTAX GUIDELINES

code block

.this-is-how-we-do-it {

}

CSS SYNTAX GUIDELINES

code block

.thisIsHowWeDoIt {

}

CSS SYNTAX GUIDELINES

code block

.this__is__how__we__do—-it {

}

CSS SYNTAX GUIDELINES

code block

.- -...- - ..- - —— .. . ..—— — {

}

CSS SYNTAX GUIDELINES

https://github.com/styleguide

https://github.com/styleguide/javascript

https://github.com/styleguide/javascript

CODE STYLE GUIDES๏ Purpose: establish code standards for teams to write more

cohesive, efficient, and maintainable code ๏ Audience: front-end developers, back-end developers, 3rd

party developers, summer interns, developers developers developers

๏ Can include: development principles, HTML structure guidelines, CSS architecture, syntax, best practices, JS style and best practices, backend language syntax and best practices

http://walmartlabs.github.io/web-style-guide

PATTERN LIBRARIES๏ Purpose: establish and maintain an effective interface

design system to create consistent UIs, speed up production, and create a watering hole for the team

๏ Audience: anyone touching the project: designers, developers, project managers, product owners, etc

๏ Can include: global elements, typography, image types, lists, navigation, blocks, media, animations, literally anything you include in a UI

MAKING PATTERN LIBRARIES HAPPEN

$ELL IT.

BENEFITS OF PATTERN LIBRARIES๏ Promotes UI consistency and cohesion

Consistency is one of the most powerful usability principles: when things always behave the same, users don't have to worry about what will happen. Instead, they know what will happen based on earlier experience. -Jakob Nielson

http://www.nngroup.com/articles/top-10-mistakes-web-design/

BENEFITS OF PATTERN LIBRARIES๏ Promotes UI consistency and cohesion ๏ Faster production

We just copied and pasted a pattern, changed a few things, and in twenty minutes we had built a system that was responsive; it looked great on mobile and it was nice to look at. [The status page] was one of those pages that not a lot of people will see. We call them the dark corners. -Federico Holgado

http://styleguides.io/podcast/federico-holgado/

By having a pattern you could actually use that's already 95% of the way there, it brings up the quality of everything so those dark corners actually aren't so dark any more. -Federico Holgado

http://styleguides.io/podcast/federico-holgado/

BENEFITS OF PATTERN LIBRARIES๏ Promotes UI consistency and cohesion ๏ Faster production ๏ Better workflow

Mostly designers will come up with rough representations of where things might live without going into too much detail because there's no longer a need to do that work up front and we can just tweak it in the browser afterwards. -Ian Feather

http://styleguides.io/podcast/ian-feather/

BENEFITS OF PATTERN LIBRARIES๏ Promotes UI consistency and cohesion ๏ Faster production ๏ Better workflow ๏ Creates a shared vocabulary

It is the common ground that designers and developers are all seeking…and I find that a style guide is really effective at providing that common ground. -Lincoln Mongillo

http://styleguides.io/podcast/lincoln-mongillo/

BENEFITS OF PATTERN LIBRARIES๏ Promotes UI consistency and cohesion ๏ Faster production ๏ Better workflow ๏ Creates a shared vocabulary ๏ Easier to test

It makes what you change in production a lot more easy to manage over the long term; you're able to debug things more effectively. You're able to have a view into how your code base is looking across a site versus having various artifacts show up across hundreds of pages. -Lincoln Mongillo

http://styleguides.io/podcast/lincoln-mongillo/

BENEFITS OF PATTERN LIBRARIES๏ Promotes UI consistency and cohesion ๏ Faster production ๏ Better workflow ๏ Creates a shared vocabulary ๏ Easier to test ๏ Useful reference

BENEFITS OF PATTERN LIBRARIES๏ Promotes UI consistency and cohesion ๏ Faster production ๏ Better workflow ๏ Creates a shared vocabulary ๏ Easier to test ๏ Useful reference ๏ Future-friendly foundation

SHOW, DON’T TELL.

http://cssstats.com

http://bradfrostweb.com/blog/post/interface-inventory

ROUND UP THE TROOPS

1

PREPARE TO SCREENSHOT

2

http://bradfrost.com/blog/post/conducting-an-interface-inventory/

SCREENSHOT EXERCISE

3

INTERFACE INVENTORY CATEGORIES๏ Global ๏ Image types ๏ Icons ๏ Navigation ๏ Forms ๏ Buttons ๏ Interactive Components ๏ Media

๏ Headings ๏ Blocks ๏ Lists ๏ 3rd party stuff ๏ Advertising ๏ Messaging ๏ Animation ๏ Colors

PRESENT FINDINGS

4

http://www.pointswestav.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Projector-meeting.jpg

REGROUP & NEXT STEPS

5

๏ Documents your interface design patterns ๏ Points out inconsistencies ๏ Helps get buy-in from organization ๏ Establishes scope of work ๏ Is the genesis of a shared vocabulary ๏ Lays the groundwork for a future pattern library

INTERFACE INVENTORY

AND IF THE BOSS STILL SAYS NO, DO IT ANYWAYS.

You just sneak it in. It's what I'm going to do to make the quality of the work better. And I don't have to say it. It starts in the sales process. You just build enough budget so that you can do it. You don't have a conversation about it, it's just par for the course. You don't have to ask permission. -Dan Mall

http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/blog/about/unfinished-business-episode-105-seventeen-coats-of-bullshit

IN ORDER TO MAKE THE WHOLE, YOU NEED TO MAKE THE PARTS.

ATOMIC DESIGN

ENTER KEYWORD

SEARCH THE SITE

SEARCH

ENTER KEYWORD

SEARCH THE SITE

SEARCH

ABSTRACT CONCRETE

ABSTRACT CONCRETE

CREATORS CLIENTS

REFERENCE BUILD REVIEW

http://styleguides.io/tools.html

DAVE OLSEN@dmolsen

WHAT PATTERN LAB IS๏ A design system builder ๏ Your comprehensive interface design system ๏ A style guide starter kit ๏ A design toolkit (viewport resizer and other tools)

https://mustache.github.io/

MOLECULE GUTScode block

<div class="block block-post"> <a href="{{ url }}"> <div class="b-img"> {{> atoms-thumb }} </div> <h3 class="b-title">{{ headline }}</h3> <p class="b-excerpt">{{ excerpt }}</p> </a> </div>

BASIC INCLUDEcode block

{{> molecules-block-post }}

ORGANISM GUTScode block

<header role="banner"> {{> atoms-logo }} {{> molecules-primary-nav }} {{> molecules-search }} </header>

ORGANISM INCLUDEcode block

{{> organisms-header }}

TEMPLATE GUTScode block{{> organisms-header }}

<main role="main"> {{# hero }} {{> molecules-hero-video }} {{/ hero }} <section> {{# experience }} {{> organisms-story-feature }} {{/ experience }} </section> <section> {{# factoid-advertising }} {{> organisms-factoid }} {{/ factoid-advertising }}

CONTENT STRUCTURE ACTUAL CONTENT

PIPING IN REAL CONTENTcode block{

"title" : "Time Inc.", "bodyClass": "home", "hero" : { "headline": "Moving People" "img": { "src": "/images/hero_beyonce.jpg", "alt": "Beyonce" } }

patternlab.io

http://trentwalton.com/2011/07/14/content-choreography/

…OR DID THEY?

Putting a style guide off to the end or treating it as a separate thing is just asking for it to just sort of die on the vine or become outdated and obsolete. -Jina Bolton

styleguides.io/podcast/jina-bolton

MAKE IT MAINTAINABLE

YOU SEEK THE HOLY GRAIL.

http://rizzo.lonelyplanet.com/

MAKE IT CROSS-DISCIPLINARY

MAKE IT APPROACHABLE

http://www.yelp.com/styleguide

http://sfdc-styleguide.herokuapp.com

http://purple.herokuapp.com

MAKE IT VISIBLE

When you start to place these kinds of assets behind constraints, many teams either take an outrageously long time to get access, or they never get access. -Nathan Curtis

http://styleguides.io/podcast/nathan-curtis

http://www.starbucks.com/static/reference/styleguide/http://www.starbucks.com/static/reference/styleguide/

styleguides.io/examples.html

Companies are using their style guide as a testament to what their belief system is and also an indicator of the quality of their organization; they're essentially using it as a recruiting tool. -Nathan Curtis

http://styleguides.io/podcast/nathan-curtis/

When I saw Salesforce’s style guide I thought it was beautiful and it's why I wanted to join this team. -Jina Bolton

styleguides.io/podcast/jina-bolton

MAKE IT AGNOSTIC

WARNING: NAMING THINGS IS REALLY FREAKING HARD.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/131260238@N08/

MAKE IT CONTEXTUAL

MAKE IT LAST

http://www.google.com/design/spec/whats-new/whats-new.html

https://flic.kr/p/5YnE4z

styleguides.io

http://styleguides.io/podcast

atomicdesign.bradfrost.com

atomicdesign.bradfrost.com

ONLY

$10!!!

THANKS! @brad_frost