UIEtips: How to Create a UX Design Library

During a podcast recording, back in 2010, Nathan Curtis of EightShapes set me on the right path regarding UX design libraries.

As we were talking, I had suggested that a UX Design Library was a snapshot of what the team felt the future of the design would be like. “Oh, no!” Nathan exclaimed. “I strongly disagree with that idea.” He went on to say that the library really was a snapshot of the past, not the future. A great library represents the best and most promising pieces of the design, so that future work could take advantage of what can be done.

Creating a library that works for the team isn’t technically challenging. However, to ensure its a success, there are important considerations and steps that the team needs to make.

In today’s UIEtips, we look back at an article from Nathan. In the article, he walks us through the process of creating a library. He’s broken it down into four doable steps (and even has a fabulous poster-grade visualization of the process). You’re really going to enjoy his article.

Read today’s article, How to Create a UX Library.

Every conversation I have with Nathan is eye opening and amazing. That’s why I eagerly agreed to work with him again on a new virtual seminar, Start Full Screen: Organize, Communicate, & Annotate HTML Prototypes. We love Nathan’s thought process around libraries, and we’re sure his thinking on HTML prototypes will be enlightening.

And as a bonus, when you register for this virtual seminar, you’ll get EightShapes’ CSS & JavaScript library along with a sample HTML prototype that demonstrates all the concepts covered.