One of the first steps in creating a design system is to conduct an interface inventory. An interface inventory gives us a categorized overview of which components make up our digital product.

Benefits of an interface inventory:

• Gain clarity regarding which design components make up a digital product.
• Help us analyze inconsistencies between them.
• Gain buy-in from stakeholders to establish a design system.
• Start a conversation with your team on how to refactor design with a pattern-based approach.
• Use it as a blueprint for a pattern library.

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  People, process, and tools

  Establish which core features in the user journey should be prioritized, clarify ownership and team communication, agree on criteria and a toolset.

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  UI patterns

  Go over different user interface pattern types: functional, perceptual, platform-specific, domain-specific, persuasive.

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  Hands-on work

  Divide and categorize screenshots of core features of your web interface by functional categories (e.g. buttons, forms, navigation, typography, lists) and intended use.

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  Nomenclature

  Discuss naming as a shared language and mental model. We will go over naming conventions and practice naming interface components.

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  Share and learn

  Share and discuss our findings and rationale, as well as which patterns we would keep, merge, and discard.

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  Next steps

  We'll share crucial steps that help us succeed when transitioning an organization to a design system.

Interface inventories are a key first step to create alignment and advocate transitioning to using design patterns in an organization. To get the most out of this workshop, bring in a cross-disciplinary team – we encourage people from every department that builds your product to join. Designers, developers, project managers, business owners, QA – are all welcome.

Workshop leads