Mentoring resources

This is my evolving collection of links and resources to share with mentees.

👋 I mentor on ADPList.org

  • If I sent you here from a session, thanks for connecting!

  • If you just found this page and want to connect, see my ADPList.org profile here.

Product/UX design

Portfolios/Learning

Accessibility/Inclusion

My booklist

UX

Inclusion/Ethics/Accessibility

Design Systems

Productivity
  • Make Time - same authors as Sprint, how to focus on what matters each day
  • Quiet by Susan Cain - encouragement for introverts

Even more at this big list.

Design systems links

Design systems job description

Qualities needed for design system designers
General skills
  • Designing and documenting components:
    • Good UI/UX design experience in general
    • Detail oriented, quality obsessed
    • Skill in articulating design decisions (by talking and writing)
    • Skill in writing (support conversations and documentation)
  • Basic understanding of design systems
  • Knowledge of accessibility/WCAG
  • Experience working closely with engineers
  • Willingness to help move ideas forward, looking for new opportunities to improve our work
Collaboration, Promotion and Support
  • Presentation skills - to evangelize and rally the teams toward a vision for the system
  • Teaching skills - to show teams how to use the system, how to contribute, etc
  • Collaborative - to provide support for users of the system and work with them on requests for new patterns, negotiating folks toward alignment
Advanced skills specific to Design Systems
  • Systems thinking - how do design decisions apply broadly
  • Experience with creating and maintaining a DS
  • Experience documenting DS
  • Experience with DS tokens, to collaborate and speak same language as engineers
  • Experience providing design specs and QA support to DS engineers on web and native platforms
  • Understanding the crossover between accessibility and design systems