After releasing CouchTimes in 2023, the first iOS app I built from scratch, I have spent the past few months working on my second app, which I plan to release later this year.
The app is called Friendzone, and it's your personal companion for managing and organizing your relationships with friends and family. The core aim of Friendzone is to help you become a more thoughtful friend, ultimately fostering deeper, longer-lasting, and healthier relationships.
In short, Friendzone is your personal CRM.
Why Friendzone?
I started building Friendzone primarily for myself. Many of my friends, colleagues, and people I want to stay in touch with don’t live in the same city as I do. Sometimes they are in different cities in Germany, other countries in Europe, or even on different continents.
Maintaining these relationships requires effort and practice. When everyone is busy with their lives, keeping in touch with friends you don’t see regularly can easily fall by the wayside.
For me, nurturing these relationships means connecting over FaceTime a few times a year or, even better, meeting in person. It also involves simply being there and catching up through text, showing genuine interest in their lives. Often, it’s the small gestures, like sending a message on the first day of a new job, that go a long way in nurturing these relationships.
In the past, I used various systems and apps to manage this. I relied on my calendar for birthdays, anniversaries, and other events, Obsidian for notes about people and Things to remind me to catch up with someone. However, all this information was scattered across different platforms, leading to a disconnected and frustrating user experience for myself.
Friendzone aims to address these issues by serving as a unified platform for all information related to your personal relationships. It will store everything you want to remember about your friends, including contact information, birthdays, anniversaries, life events, gift ideas, and general notes.
With this powerful collection, it’s up to you to step up and become a more thoughtful friend, nurturing and growing your real-life relationships.
I envision a future where Friendzone is a tool that helps you become that person. Friendzone is designed to be a purpose- and principle-driven software that supports you in managing your relationships while keeping all your data privacy-focused on your device and only synced with your own iCloud.
Join the waitlist
While Friendzone is not ready for an official release yet, a few friends and I have been using it for over two months.
It has been a year since I launched CouchTimes. During this time, I released 13 versions, and CouchTimes was downloaded over 14,500 times from the App Store, receiving 202 ratings with an average of 4.8.
As mentioned in the introduction post during CouchTimes' launch, this project was a long journey with ups and downs. In this post, I aim to reflect on the year and share some of my insights.
Release Day
The release of CouchTimes on May 5, 2023, came at a strange time for me. The day before, Shopify, my employer at the time, announced layoffs that impacted me as well. Despite these unexpected events, I proceeded with the CouchTimes launch as planned, turning the situation into a more positive moment. The outcome was incredibly rewarding and put my mind into a whole different environment for the next days and weeks afterward.
My plan was straightforward: I aimed to publish a concise blog post outlining my thoughts and introduce CouchTimes, share it on Mastodon, Twitter, and other platforms, and then hope for the best. For the remainder of 2023, my goal was to surpass 100 downloads comfortably.
My Mastodon post gained some traction, which helped me immensely in the first hours of the release day. It quickly became evident that my 2023 goal had been exceeded within hours. However, this marked just the beginning.
Later that day, CouchTimes was featured in the "New App Features and Content" category on the App Store, leading to increased downloads. Furthermore, Alex Olma from iPhoneBlog.de wrote a post about CouchTimes, sparking a wave of coverage in German tech outlets.
Throughout the weekend and in the days that followed, numerous tech outlets covered CouchTimes (Caschys Blog, iphone-ticker.de, appgefahren.de, Chip.de...), resulting in a significant increase in download numbers. I found myself checking TelemetryDeck, the privacy-focused analytics tool in CouchTimes, every 30 minutes, astonished by the continuous growth in downloads.
App Store Connect Analytics of CouchTimes shows the data after the first week following the initial release.
After the first week on the App Store, CouchTimes accumulated over 5,500 downloads, a figure that was utterly unimaginable to me. Discovering that over 80% of all downloads originated from Germany highlighted two key points:
Firstly, the unplanned press coverage in German tech outlets significantly drove the majority of downloads, emphasizing the crucial role of press coverage in any launch, even when it happens unexpectedly.
Secondly, the decision not to localize the CouchTimes experience in any way and to maintain English as the default language for the release generated discussion. Initially, my download expectations were modest, envisioning downloads from family, friends, and perhaps friends of friends. However, the unforeseen success in Germany posed challenges, leading to some 1-star ratings in the App Store.
Supporting German
During the initial excitement in the first few days, what truly amazed me and continues to bring joy are the numerous DMs, emails, or comments filled with feedback or bug reports. Since day one, I have been fortunate to have many wonderful individuals using CouchTimes, demonstrating patience and understanding in their messages.
Most interactions were positive, but occasional outliers emerged, especially regarding the lack of German translation support. This situation presented a delicate balance between enjoyable and challenging moments. German translations were always part of the plan, but now I had to rush to complete them as quickly as possible without prior experience in Xcode, considering CouchTimes was my first app ever.
On June 1st, a couple of weeks after the launch, I released version 1.1, which addressed various bug fixes, minor improvements, and the highly anticipated German language support. The subsequent events took me by surprise...
Without any prior prompting or messages, some German tech outlets (Caschys Blog, iphone-ticker.de...) began picking up on the 1.1 update, emphasizing that CouchTimes now supported the German language.
The oversight of lacking something so evident and being caught off guard turned into another scenario of press coverage and a significant surge in downloads.
App Store Connect Analytics of CouchTimes shows the data after the first week following the release of version 1.1.
In hindsight, it's easy to see things clearly. Today, I would emphasize even more on shipping as soon as possible, even if you are missing an obvious feature or functionality. You may receive feedback pointing out the missed obvious feature, but if you plan to swiftly respond and address it, you can maintain the momentum and keep the conversation about your product alive.
Continuously shipping updates
After the initial exciting weeks, my focus shifted more to listening to user feedback and continually shipping updates. Enhancing German localizations, adding support for ARD and ZDF (German public-service television broadcasters) search recommendations, support for iPadOS, redesigning the "Add New Show" experience, improving the library, iCloud enhancements, and more became my priorities until the end of 2023.
By that time, the number of downloads had surpassed 10,000, with monthly active users (MAU) hovering around 1,500.
2024 and today
In February, the year for CouchTimes started with the launch of version 1.5, the most feature-packed release so far. This update introduced Interactive Widgets, support for Cast information, and various quality-of-life improvements for managing and tracking seasons and episodes as watched.
While I initially doubted the importance of Widgets for CouchTimes due to insufficient user requests for it, I aimed to include this functionality to enhance CouchTimes integration into the iOS ecosystem. Additionally, many other features were based on long-standing user requests, which is always rewarding to implement when they align with the product's overall vision.
Despite my enthusiasm for the new features, I soon discovered that I may have inadvertently introduced some regressions that compromised the user experience. This led to increased emails about data, performance, and syncing issues, which resulted in some negative reviews on the App Store. Negative reviews were previously uncommon, especially after the addition of German translations.
Undoubtedly, this was perhaps the most challenging period since CouchTimes launched. Despite the high download and active user numbers, the pressure mounted as I realized the mistakes in my codebase that were not straightforward for me to rectify.
It's worth reiterating that this is my first app. I'm not a professional programmer (I'm paid for product and design work as a profession). While I feel competent and quick with SwiftUI for frontend development tasks, handling complex backend work involving databases, networking, data syncing between APIs (like TMDb), and personal databases (CoreData), and ensuring everything is up to date is a source of significant anxiety for me.
Following the release of 1.5, I delved deeper into backend-related matters and issued multiple updates to address data syncing issues, multi-threading challenges, performance challenges, and more. The pivotal aspect during this period was even more communication with users who reported these bugs. Users typically seek solutions to their problems and are often willing to assist and provide contextual information along the way. Some even volunteered to have a call to aid in resolving the issues, which we never had to do, but which was greatly appreciated as a gesture of support.
Currently, version 1.5.5 has been out for a little over a week, and it seems that most significant issues have been resolved. While there are some elements to further refine in the upcoming iterations, the initial response has been excellent. CouchTimes seems more stable and notably speedier, especially for users with extensive show lists, which remains a concept that surprises me.
Looking into the future
The journey with CouchTimes has been incredible, and I aim to keep refining the user experience and feature set going forward. A core principle of CouchTimes is to provide a simple and elegant solution for TV show enthusiasts to track their favorite shows.
This implies that CouchTimes will not strive to include every possible feature. I will work diligently to curate the app with a focus on simplicity and elegance for those who prioritize these aspects in such an application. Nevertheless, here are some high-level directions I am planning to invest time in next, in no particular order:
The mentioned items provide an overview of potential additions to CouchTimes, but there are no set commitments on the order of these features or specific timelines. CouchTimes remains a side project that does not contribute to my income, so I have to have priorities straight.
Monetization
A common question I receive is: What are your plans for CouchTimes and how can I support CouchTimes today? Here are two straightforward answers:
First, if you want to support CouchTimes today, please consider writing a 5-star review in the App Store; this is the best support CouchTimes can receive currently.
Secondly, CouchTimes, in its current state and with its current features, is and will always be free to use. Additionally, I intend to introduce charges for some of the mentioned features above, which will be entirely optional. The exact pricing details are still pending, but it will be a one-time in-app purchase, without any subscription model. But the details and thoughts behind this are probably for another blog post.
Learnings
As I tried to share stories and insights about the past year, there were undoubtedly essential lessons I learned from my initial year running CouchTimes.
CouchTimes was not the ideal "first app"
While CouchTimes may appear straightforward initially (searching for shows and tracking watched episodes), it presents more technical challenges than I anticipated. Initially, I believed it would be a suitable scope and challenge for my first iOS app, a view I now reconsider. If I were to start over, I would begin with an app that avoids network or synchronization complexities.
It doesn't matter if other apps exist in the same space
When discussing CouchTimes or my ideas, the initial response I often encounter is, "Doesn't a similar app already exist?" My typical response is, "Indeed, there are many TV show tracking apps out there."
If you think this should discourage me from building yet another TV show tracking app, you're wrong. If you find yourself in a similar situation with another idea, it's essential to deeply consider the specific problems you aim to solve. The presence of competition doesn't diminish the value of pursuing what you want to create. You can still add value to an existing market. Everything depends on how you seek to solve the problem; just copying something else is obviously not the solution.
In many scenarios, creating a product is not a zero-sum game. Addressing diverse needs and offering a customized solution for a specific group of users adds value. Think about the plethora of to-do apps with successful business models. I can probably tell you 10 successful to-do apps/products out there in a very similar market off the top of my head. While market competition and conditions are important, my emphasis with CouchTimes is on simplicity and elegance, aiming to cater to a market segment that values these qualities.
If you require additional features, there are numerous fantastic alternatives available, and I'm pleased to suggest some to you. Ultimately, the diversity of solutions and endeavors is what matters.
Press coverage
I have emphasized the substantial influence of press coverage in CouchTimes' success, primarily due to fortuitous circumstances. A crucial lesson I've gleaned is the importance of nurturing relationships with the press and proactively pursuing coverage for significant releases. Depending solely on chance and goodwill may not be sustainable in the long term.
Additionally, the experience with the missing German translation and the subsequent increase in press coverage after its prompt addition remains thought-provoking. This scenario presents a potential area for future exploration and utilization.
I don't fall into the power-user category of my own app
I had a sense of this prior to the release, considering my reduced TV consumption in recent years. However, discovering the extensive libraries of shows some CouchTimes users have has been surprising and has set a high standard for my sync engine, especially during testing.
My personal list of TV shows primarily consists of content from platforms like Netflix, HBO, or Apple TV+, with the total number of shows tracked in CouchTimes still in the double digits. Facing limitations as a non-power user with a less varied show list created challenges. As feedback increased, I learned of users tracking hundreds of shows, occasionally including shows started decades ago or ones with over 1000 episodes.
Reflecting back, having a more diverse range of TV shows for testing purposes would be beneficial in identifying stress case errors and problems effectively in the long term.
Respond quickly, be kind and ask for patience
In essence, my strategy for managing feedback and support requests entails prompt and appreciative responses, emphasizing the personal connection as a solo indie developer. Acknowledging messages quickly, expressing gratitude, and reassuring users that issues are being addressed help build trust significantly.
Users have expressed pleasant surprise at receiving timely responses from the app developer, often within 24 hours. This personalized approach, combined with requests for patience, particularly after the 1.5 release challenges, has effectively transformed lower ratings in the App Store to 5-star reviews.
Thank You
Last but not least, I want to express my gratitude to all the people who tried CouchTimes, provided feedback, and left ratings in the App Store. As a side project, it's truly rewarding when it adds to your happiness rather than stress. Throughout the past year, CouchTimes has achieved this, and it wouldn't have been possible without your support.
I kicked off the year by rebuilding my personal website from scratch. I deleted all the CSS, moved everything back to Kirby, and started anew. I wrote a brief post outlining my goals for this endeavor and explaining why I'm approaching the project with a focus on slow and steady progress rather than a complete redesign in one go. Following this post, I struggled to find time or motivation to initiate the next steps, and unfortunately, nothing happened.
After numerous conversations and lengthy text threads with my good friend Jen about personal websites, portfolios for designers, and everything in between (more details on this to come in a future post), I finally had some time this weekend to revisit my website.
The progress I've made isn't mind-blowing, and the design direction will continue to evolve and change (still aiming for slow and steady progress), but I've reached a point where I don't feel completely embarrassed, despite dropping the ball for a few weeks after dismantling everything.
I've made progress in selecting typefaces that I love and plan to use on my new personal website moving forward. A special shoutout goes to one of my absolute favorite type foundries, Klim, and their beautiful Söhne and Martina Plantijn fonts. All other visuals are intentionally super basic, solely serving the purpose of making the content (which currently consists only of a blog) more readable and overall pleasant to interact with.
As the next step, I need to address some minor maintenance tasks, including fixing favicons and implementing Open Graph support, before delving into the exploration of other subpages like /now or /photos. Overall, I'm content with the progress—taking it one step at a time.
Happy New Year! It's 2024, and one thing I want to get in order this year is this little space on the web. It's my own little space, and I neglected it a lot in the past 2-3 years. In 2019, I embarked on a little redesign journey in the open, and I am embarking on a similar journey this year. I downloaded Kirby's Plainkit and moved some of my old posts here. That's my starting point, no styles, no fluff, everything else is removed.
As I go along in my thinking and coding process over the next couple of months (I'm in no hurry to finish my website quickly), I'll write more about the direction I want to take. Currently, I want to create a space that brings together different aspects of who I am and what I represent, think about, or want to share.
This spectrum starts from a more professional angle, where I need space to present previous work and provide context about my professional experiences as a Product Designer to illustrate my skills. It continues with insights and updates from my indie app development, focusing on CouchTimes and upcoming projects. Additionally, it should also provide space for sharing photos, discussing great books I've read, and reflecting on thoughts and learnings currently documented only in Obsidian. These might also be valuable to others.
In the past, my website always focused on specific areas on this spectrum. If I was in the process of switching jobs, my website was basically a pure portfolio website, while it was way more free-form and experimental when I wasn't concerned with searching for a new job. I don't think it has to be that way, and I can bring this all under one umbrella.
This is exactly where the topic of Digital Gardening might come into play. We'll see, I'm not sure yet...
I don't write a lot here, but when an easy little blogging trend comes along, I jump on the bandwagon as quickly as I can. While I first saw these kinds of posts on Arne's blog, they seem to be spreading more and more over the past few days.
This project means a lot to me, and there were countless moments in the past few years when I almost gave up on it completely and decided not to release it. Seeing it live on the App Store now is a dream come true.
I know this may sound a bit over the top, but let me try to convince you with a screenshot from Hover, when I first purchased the couchtim.es domain:
You read that correctly. It took me a little over nine years to finish the first version of this side project. From 2014 until today, I probably started and stopped this project over ten times. I began by building a web app using various stacks, then moved on to building it for the iPhone during Swift’s infancy, and later restarted the project again when SwiftUI came out.
I’ll talk more about the journey and its details in the upcoming episodes of Sprachnachrichten, but for now, reaching this amazing milestone feels like a significant accomplishment.
Now let’s focus on the actual release.
CouchTimes 1.0
As mentioned earlier, CouchTimes is the iOS app I developed to track my favorite shows. While there are many apps out there that offer similar or more advanced features, none of them felt right for me. I desired something beautiful, with a clear focus on TV shows, and something that simply felt right.
While this first version is just the beginning of what I consider to be the “perfect app,” it’s a great starting point that I believe can provide value not only to me and my friends, but also to others who share our sentiments.
At its core, CouchTimes is built using modern Swift and SwiftUI. I’ve always admired iOS as a platform, and creating CouchTimes as a good citizen for this platform was one of my guiding principles. CouchTimes should feel as native as possible and utilize the best native capabilities that iOS has to offer.
To go a little more into the details, let’s look into what CouchTimes has to offer:
Library
The Library is the heart of CouchTimes. It’s where you manage your shows, interact with them, and discover more about the show itself, including upcoming seasons and episodes. It also offers three distinct views to optimize your approach to managing your favorite shows:
Watchlist
This is the place where your shows live by default. It’s where you should keep the shows that you’re currently watching or planning to watch.
Favorites
Has a friend ever asked you for TV show recommendations? This is where the favorites view will be useful. Simply mark a show as a favorite, and this screen will display all your favorites at once.
Archive
Archiving something can be better than deleting it. At least, that’s the case in CouchTimes. If you’ve finished watching a show, simply move it to the Archive. That way, it won’t clutter your Watchlist and you won’t lose the progress you’ve tracked for the show.
Search
Search is where you can find your favorite shows to track with CouchTimes or discover new shows to start watching. Search and all the data displayed in CouchTimes are powered by TMDB, an incredible API for movie and TV show data.
Privacy and Sync
At its core, CouchTimes is built with a privacy-focused approach and respects users’ privacy. You don’t need to create an account or sign up for CouchTimes to use it. Furthermore, CouchTimes keeps your data safe and secure. Cross-device synchronization is handled via your personal iCloud account, so your data isn’t saved outside the existing relationship between you and Apple.
Moreover, CouchTimes only uses a lightweight app analytics solution called TelemetryDeck. TelemetryDeck provides anonymized usage insights about how users use CouchTimes. Everything is GDPR and CCPA compliant, ensuring that your data is protected and that your privacy rights are respected.
The Future
While having version 1.0 available on the App Store is a major milestone that makes me very happy, this is just the beginning. I already have big plans for the future of CouchTimes, including the addition of an episode release calendar, statistics related to viewing habits and brining CouchTimes to more Apple platforms.
Furthermore, I’d like to experiment with pricing strategies and monetization. I made the clear decision to release version 1.0 as a free app, and this foundational set of features will always be free. However, I would like to explore the possibilities of adding more value and features, such as those I mentioned above, and with that explore going into In-App purchases to either subscribe or unlock features.
For now, I’m looking forward to the upcoming WWDC and all the changes that Apple will bring to us developers, particularly with SwiftUI. As of today, stability, performance, and support for iOS 17 will be my highest priorities in the coming months. After that, we’ll see where this journey takes us.
If you have any feedback, thoughts, or feature requests, please feel free to contact me on Mastodon or via email.
As our design community at BRYTER grew, new problems emerged. With more designers and collaborators, different file and organizing structures made it hard to understand design files and their state.
What is the most recent iteration?
What is still work-in-progress?
What is ready for implementation?
Are these comments still relevant?
All these and many more questions bubbled up and made navigating through Figma files more and more complicated.
Based on these problems, we set out to propose a universal structure to use for every new design file. For the first iteration, the questions and goals for our new Figma file structure were:
How to make it clear whom to contact when somebody has questions about work inside a Figma file?
How to separate different stages of a design process intuitively, so it doesn’t feel like an additional thing to keep in mind?
How can we change basically nothing for developers, but also give them all the benefits if they decide to dig deeper into Figma files?
How can we make feedback sessions (e.g. design critiques) more sustainable and persistent inside a file?
Have everything in one file!
Basic outline
Since we wanted everything in one single file, we needed to cover the common steps during our design process in this template, while also leaving space for flexibility. One clear first step for us was the introduction of a README page inside every design file. This README holds all the key information about the project, some helpful links as well as a glossary about the design template itself (not everybody might be familiar with it at any time, so having this helps).
Because a dedicated "Handoff" page for designers/developer communication was already an appearing pattern, we doubled down on this and made it the first visible page after the README. Most developers frequenting this file want to see the final designs because they need to implement them at some point. Additionally, they also are the most important bits when quickly looking through old files to get a basic understanding.
The next sections are all focused on helping designers structure their work more efficiently. With that in mind we created different dedicated sections for prototyping, exploration and feedback sessions. All these sections were meant to support as many sibling pages as needed by the creator.
Prototyping
The dedicated prototyping section follows the idea that exploration and prototyping, while very close, are two different areas of activity. We should treat them this way to have more flexibility. Inside the prototyping section, you should focus on connecting different screens and components to build a Figma prototype - that’s it.
Exploration
This section is focused on pure UX or visual exploration. Creation of maps, wireframes, pixel-perfect designs, in this section anything is possible and the designers are in full control. While the possibilities are limitless, this section isn't the right place to run full design critiques or build detailed prototypes because a lot can and should change here.
Feedback sessions
While comments inside Figma are helpful, we learned that changes to designs are the enemy of Figma comments that stick to a specific location inside the Figma canvas. To prevent confusion and make comments more valuable long-term, we've decided to separate concerns and created a specific page for feedback. Designers can copy/paste these designs over into a feedback page and shouldn't touch it from this point forward. Everything stays the same and feedback makes sense even three years after a design critiques.
Components and Time Machine
While these three section are the core of our template, we also added a section for file internal components (components that aren't inside our design system) as well as a section called Time Machine, which is based on the Time Machine Figma plugin, which we use internally.
Conclusion
When looking back at the questions and goals we had before creating the design file templates, we see that all of them are now resolved. The key to get here was a clear separation between creation, feedback, testing and handoff. If we are strict with the fundamental blocks of this template (aka. the different sections), we can be more flexible inside each individual section.
We lowered the bar to fully understand individual Figma files inside our design community as well as for other stakeholders. Regardless which information somebody is looking for, they should be able to find it by themselves and if not the README is always there as a last resort.
After some weeks of silence, it is time for another update focusing on CouchTimes. In two previous posts (1, 2) I’ve already talked about the goals of this side project.
Not much has changed from the perspective of these goals, but a lot has changed inside the app since I wrote about it in August.
But before we get into my actual progress I need to make a short statement. While I have a lot of fun working in the iOS ecosystem and enjoy using the latest builds of my app on my iPhone, iOS development as a whole has many quirks. While some things are sooooo fast to implement (especially with SwiftUI) some things just feel broken and when you hit a roadblock, it can feel like hell.
During the latest episode of Under the Radar I could feel my self-esteem rise when I heard the struggles of two very experienced iOS developers during their journey of moving code to Swift and SwiftUI. One of the major misses from Apple comes down to Apple's Piss-Poor Documentation - a topic I want to write about more in the context of design systems at some point, but let’s keep the focus on CouchTimes for now.
Besides my struggles during the past months, I’m thrilled with my current progress. The latest build I’ve published to TestFlight has the following features:
Basic structure for an onboarding screen
Empty states for different screens
Swipe action to mark the next episode as watched
New library screen with favorite features to get a list for your favorite shows
With that we get more and more to a state I would consider version 1.0. Besides some fixes and improvements the only things missing from my current list are “Custom App Icons”, “Appearances (e.g. always dark mode)” and Widget support. The latter would definitely be the biggest investment, and I’m currently unsure if this is worth it.
If you want to join the beta, please visit the TestFlight.
This year is hard for every human on planet earth. Especially people who run conferences or similar events either cancel or look for alternatives that come close to their previous in-person events.
Last week I had the privilege to attend a virtual version of a conference I never attended (but always wanted to) before called Clarity. Based on this I can’t compare any previous in-person Clarity event with the virtual version of this year's edition. I can only speak for this year, and it was a great overall experience — just fabulous.
The whole team and the amazing Emcees Catt and Dan did a fantastic job in guiding through these three days. Lots of fun activities and a good amount of dad jokes were included.
On top of the setting, all talks were very solid and each one had bits and pieces that will linger in my brain for some weeks to come. It exceeded my expectations of what a virtual conference can offer.
But let’s focus on my takeaways.
Gaps
One recurring topic in the sphere of design systems is about “bridging the gap” between design and development. In her talk, The Design Systems Spiral, Jina Anne, rightfully asked why this gap even exists in the first place. She also underlined the fact that design systems are not only about the deliverables but people in general.
Additionally, Alex Skougarevskaya talked about the fact that design systems are here to help us with agreeing on things. Likewise, we also should shift our minds more towards a service-driven mindset. We shouldn’t always focus on producing new components, but rather start researching the things designers and developers are using the current components for and how they are using them as a whole. We should invest more in sparring, service desk and customer happiness of your design system.
In Design Systems, or: How I learned to stop fighting and love the team Natalya and Tim Shelburne addressed how design systems can help collaboration and bring individuals to the zone of proximal development. Design systems should be used to communicate mental models and make design decisions explicit.
Design systems are the tool that allows one person to archive the results of another, without having to do the mental overhead to learn the mental model of another.
While design systems can help with these things, they aren't a replacement for soft skills. In teams and collaboration, it should always be Us vs. The Problem and learning together as a team should be the focus.
Never done
Another prominent topic during these three days circled around the fact that, like almost everything, design systems are never done. Design systems are about people, collaboration, and the process itself.
We as people who work on design systems can always improve components and tools, but we should focus more on the intermediate and personal things to solve.
Our way of systematically thinking about problems can also help in other areas like team structures and collaboration. In his talk Designing teams. Designing systems. Farai Madzima talked about the similarities between design and team principles and how a shared language in these areas is needed to successfully collaborate. Create a glossary to improve the meaning of your language — this doesn’t only have to be for your design or development workflows. It also is very helpful for a company to make common words and phrases more clear for new-joiners. In the end, successful collaboration boils down to successful communication.
Happiness & Inclusivity
The last topic I want to talk about in this quick personal summary uses the whole spectrum from inclusive documentation to inclusive and accessible products. In her talk Creating Inclusive Content: Why it Matters Brittney Ball gave a quick guide with an unbelievable amount of actionable suggestions on how to write and improve documentation.
Inclusive content is content that helps everybody, even if they just started out. Documentation shouldn’t make users feel intimidated or trigger imposter syndrome by using words like “easy” or “just” (something I’ve been guilty of myself in the past).
When writing documentation we always should remember how it feels to learn something new and include people from the outside. Ideally, we can bring in juniors or new-joiners to test and help with writing content.
In one of my favorite talks called Accessibility beyond color contrast Allison Shaw showcased what it means to build accessible components and products.
In the past, I also had conversations myself where accessibility only was recognized or thought about in the context of color contrast. This talk was a perfect example of how to improve general arguments and push more for things like performance and especially inclusive writing. All this helps with the goal of inclusive and accessible products.
She also mentioned something that I still need to think about in more detail ⇒ Intuition is a myth! Consistency is intuition!
Summary
There is so much more to talk and think about. As I said already, I liked every talk and learned bits and pieces everywhere — which is an excellent sign for a conference, if you ask me.
I genuinely enjoyed these three days very much and can highly recommend watching all the talks, if they will be published at some point. I don't know the details on this, sorry.
Some weeks ago, I wrote about CouchTimes, the iOS TV show tracking application, I'm currently working on. In the past weeks, I did some progress on different angles of the application and I wanted to start sharing them more closely on this blog.
I completely redid the search views from a technical standpoint
Better image API handling ⇒ default to English localized covers and posters
Much more little details
On top of everything, I also started to push new releases to TestFlight now. If you are interested in joining this testing round, (email: [email protected] text: please write a mail) (you need to run iOS 14).
