Remote Working Culture - The Challenges and Perks
Embracing the design journey
In recent times, remote working has become the new norm for many design professionals. While this shift brings about its own set of challenges, it also presents exciting opportunities and perks. In this empathetic and thought-provoking blog, we will embark on a creative journey to explore the unique remote working culture in the design industry. Let’s dive in, reflect on the challenges we face, and celebrate the perks that make this journey a remarkable one. Following are a few takeaways from our experience.
Collaboration
“Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much.” – Helen Keller
Design thrives on collaboration and the free-flowing exchange of ideas. Remote work can sometimes make this collaborative spirit feel distant. Overcoming this challenge requires embracing digital tools that foster real-time communication, screen sharing, and virtual whiteboards. By leveraging technology, we can bridge the physical divide and nurture a culture of collaboration.
Flexibility
“Flexibility is the key to stability.” – John Wooden
Remote working offers the freedom to design our work environment and schedule. From working in our favourite pyjamas to creating a personalized workstation, flexibility becomes an artistic canvas that allows us to express our unique style. Embracing this perk can enhance our creativity, productivity, and overall work-life balance.
Distractions
“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” – Alexander Graham Bell
Working remotely comes with its fair share of distractions. Whether it’s household chores, family members, or the allure of endless cat videos on the internet, staying focused can be a real struggle. To overcome this challenge, we must create dedicated workspaces, establish boundaries, and practice self-discipline. By bringing our focus to the forefront, we can channel our creative energy effectively.
Diverse Perspectives
“Design is thinking made visual.” – Saul Bass
Remote working opens up a world of possibilities by allowing us to collaborate with individuals from diverse backgrounds and locations. This cultural richness brings fresh perspectives, new ideas, and a broader understanding of design. Embracing these diverse voices can lead to innovative breakthroughs that transcend geographical boundaries.
Maintaining Work-Life Balance
“Balance is not something you find, it’s something you create.” – Jana Kingsford
Blurring the lines between work and personal life is a common challenge in remote work. As designers, we must consciously create a balance that allows us to recharge, nurture our passions, and avoid burnout. Establishing clear boundaries, practising self-care, and setting aside time for hobbies and personal growth are essential steps towards maintaining a healthy work-life equilibrium.
Global Connections
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” – Augustine of Hippo
Remote working has transformed our design journeys into global adventures. Through virtual conferences, online communities, and digital platforms, we can connect with designers from every corner of the world. Embracing these connections allows us to learn from different cultures, share experiences, and broaden our creative horizons.
Conclusion
Remote working culture in the design industry presents us with both challenges and perks. By nurturing a collaborative spirit, embracing flexibility, maintaining focus, valuing diverse perspectives, creating work-life balance, and expanding our global connections, we can transform these challenges into opportunities for growth and innovation. Let us embark on this creative journey with empathy, resilience, and a sense of fun, celebrating the ever-evolving world of remote design. Together, we can make our mark and shape a brighter future for the design industry.
Top 10 Design Tools That Will Simplify Your Design Process Copy
Boost Your Design Workflow with These Top 10 Design Systems for Improved User Experience
Design systems are all the rage and most articles talk about what they are and best practices for creating them. Aside from implementing design systems into your workflow, design systems are a tremendous untapped resource for learning how to create better user experiences and interfaces just by studying them!
What better way to understand how to design an e-commerce user flow than from Shopify or an iOS mobile app than from Apple?! These are what we call Design Patterns and great product designers know how to use these to inform the decisions they make with their designs. No need to reinvent the UX wheel when the best companies in the world have already paved the way tested them with actual users and published their UI/UX and product design methodologies online!
“Sometimes I think everything I draw is just a combination of all of the millions and millions of drawings I’ve seen.”
Try Design System Manager for yourself.
“Design systems provide a convenient, centralized, and evolving map of a brand’s known product territories with directional pointers to help you explore new regions.”
—Chris Messina, tech evangelist and former developer experience lead at Uber
What better way to understand how to design an e-commerce user flow than from Shopify or an iOS mobile app than from Apple?! These are what we call Design Patterns and great product designers know how to use these to inform the decisions they make with their designs. No need to reinvent the UX wheel when the best companies in the world have already paved the way tested them with actual users and published their UI/UX and product design methodologies online!
“Sometimes I think everything I draw is just a combination of all of the millions and millions of drawings I’ve seen.”
Google — Material Design System
Material Design is a comprehensive design system developed by Google. Google developed a treasure trove of simple, elegant design templates and style guides. Material is an adaptable design system — backed by open-source code — that helps teams quickly build high-quality digital experiences. It provides guidelines, components, and tools to create visually appealing and consistent user interfaces across different platforms.
Languages: Android, iOS, Other
Theming Support: Dark Mode, Design Tokens
Atlassian Design System
Use Atlassian’s end-to-end design language to create simple, intuitive and beautiful experiences. Atlassian Design System is a comprehensive design system developed by Atlassian. It provides design guidelines, components, and resources for building consistent and user-friendly products within the Atlassian ecosystem.
Languages: React
Theming Support: N/A
Microsoft — Fluent Design System
Fluent, an open-source, cross-platform design system, helps designers and developers create engaging product experiences with accessibility, internationalization, and performance. Microsoft’s Fluent Design System emphasizes immersive, intuitive, and responsive user experiences. Depth, motion, and transparency dominate. Microsoft’s Fluent UI principles, components, and tools. It provides a consistent and adaptable user interface across web, mobile, and desktop platforms.
Languages: React, TypeScript
Theming Support: Dark Mode, Design Tokens
Shopify — Polaris Design System
Polaris by Shopify. It combines the workflow of a designer and a developer—reusable elements and styles, packaged through code, for building admin interfaces. Polaris is Shopify’s design system that provides guidelines, components, and resources for creating consistent and delightful user experiences across Shopify’s platform. It focuses on simplicity, accessibility, and extensibility.
Languages: React, TypeScript
Theming Support: N/A
Ant Design System
Help designers/developers build beautiful products that are more flexible and work with happiness. Ant Design is a design system created by the Ant Design Team at Alibaba. It offers a wide range of reusable components, icons, and patterns for building high-quality, enterprise-level applications.
Languages: React, TypeScript
Theming Support: Dark Mode, Design Tokens
IBM — Carbon Design System
Carbon is IBM’s open-source design system for products and digital experiences. The Carbon Design System by IBM offers a set of design guidelines, UI components, and code patterns for creating enterprise-level applications. It emphasizes modularity, accessibility, and scalability.
Languages: Angular, React, Vue
Theming Support: Dark Mode
AWS Amplify
Official design system from Amazon Web Services. Amplify UI is an open-source design system with cloud-connected components and primitives that simplify building accessible, responsive, and beautiful applications. It is a complete solution that lets frontend web and mobile developers easily build, ship, and host full-stack applications on AWS, with the flexibility to leverage the breadth of AWS services as use cases evolve. No cloud expertise is needed.
Languages: iOS, Android, Web, Flutter, and React Native apps
Theming Support: Dark Mode, Design Tokens
Mailchimp
Having recently updated its branding and identity system, Mailchimp has been a long-time leader in user-friendly email marketing and has grown beyond email into an all-in-one marketing platform for small businesses. Mailchimp empowers businesses to grow while staying true to themselves. Their brand embodies what’s important to the Mailchimp team — a devotion to craft, a love of creative expression, and an obsession with quality.
Languages:
Theming Support: Dark Mode, Design Tokens
Lightning Design System (Salesforce)
Lightning Design System is Salesforce’s design system that provides a set of guidelines and components for building web and mobile applications within the Salesforce ecosystem. It promotes a consistent and efficient user experience. Salesforce pioneered cloud-based CRM software and has helped 150,000+ companies run more effectively. They deliver personalized experiences to your customers through integrated CRM that enhances marketing, sales, commerce, service, IT, and more.
Languages: React, TypeScript
Theming Support: Dark Mode, Design Tokens
Audi Design System
Audi user interfaces are as varied as their uses — from inspiring websites to applications for a particular service. The aim is to create varied solutions and a well-balanced, system-wide user experience — from the app to the vehicle. Joint standard components, modules and animations provide the basis for this.
Languages: N/A
Theming Support: Dark, light
Conclusion:
In conclusion, design systems have become a crucial tool for UX/UI designers in 2023. Companies like Airbnb, Uber, and IBM have paved the way by implementing their design systems, revolutionizing the creation and innovation process within their teams. Design systems offer more than just a collection of elements and code snippets; they provide a centralized and evolving map of a brand’s product territories, enabling efficient design management and process optimization.
By studying design systems created by leading companies like Google, Atlassian, Microsoft, Shopify, Ant Design, IBM, AWS Amplify, Mailchimp, Salesforce, and Audi, designers can gain valuable insights and learn from established design patterns and best practices. These design systems offer guidelines, components, and resources for building visually appealing, consistent, and user-friendly interfaces across various platforms.
Design systems are particularly important in the current landscape of millions of mobile and web apps, each with numerous screens. As organizations worldwide invest in digital transformation, reducing the time it takes to create new products becomes essential, and design systems play a significant role in achieving this efficiency.
As the design industry continues to evolve, keeping up with the top design systems and incorporating them into the workflow can significantly enhance the user experience and streamline the design process. By leveraging these design systems, designers can benefit from the tested methodologies and expertise of the world’s leading companies, ultimately improving their design practices and creating better user experiences.