Effective communication is critical to the success of any design system. With transparent, inclusive communications, we build confidence, awareness, and satisfaction. It’s also a great way to celebrate contributions from outside the team stewarding the design system.
Who’s responsible?
Communicating change to the design system lies with the person driving the change. This could be a designer, developer, or product manager. Often, the person broadcasting an update will be the one who performed the work and has the most context about it.
Communication channels
We use Slack as a primary method of communicating design system changes. Here are the channels to be aware of with guidelines on what and when to post:
|
Channel |
Purpose |
Messaging Strategy |
|---|---|---|
|
Public feed of updates or noteworthy information about the design system. |
Primary channel for sharing updates about the design system. All updates should follow the Communication Template guidelines. |
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|
Private channel for Design Team members. |
Cross-posting design-oriented #feed-design-system announcements. |
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|
Public channel for Design Team members and anyone interested in design. |
Cross-posting design-oriented #feed-design-system announcements. |
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|
Public channel for Engineering Team members and anyone interested in engineering. |
Cross-posting development-oriented #feed-design-system announcements. |
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Public channel for anyone interested in front-end technologies. |
Cross-posting development-oriented #feed-design-system announcements. |
Communication template
When broadcasting changes to the design system, follow the Communication Template guidelines in the #feed-design-system Slack channel. It will guide you through the message structure and examples. Following the same, consistent patterns in messaging allows design system consumers easily identify the changes that are most relevant to them.