Articles - Amy Hupe

Successful design systems don’t happen by accident – they’re intentional, they have clear aims, and their team’s work is prioritised against shared goals.

I’ve noticed a trend recently amongst marketing copywriters and I am – and I cannot stress this enough – NOT into it.

Never in my life have I been so violently confronted by my brokenness than in the first year of separating from my husband in early 2023.

The law of conservation of energy says that, within a closed system, energy cannot be created or destroyed: only converted from one form of energy to another.

“Where are we going?”

I am a perfectionist.

Today I attended ffconf in Brighton for the second year running.

“Pack your bags!”

_This post is based on a talk I gave at this year's Smashing Conf in Freiburg, I'll add a link to the talk once it's available.

As an independent consultant, I find myself in the position of “new girl” more than most.

I am burnt out.

For the third year running, I’m taking part in National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo for short).

This blog post is based on a talk I did at Converge Manchester 2023 - I will add a link to the talk when it's ready.

Every month I run a free Zoom session called Design Systems Open Space.

For those of you who’ve been fortunate enough to miss my incessant social media posting on the matter, I run a monthly Zoom session called Design Systems Open Space.

National Blog Posting Month - affectionately known as NaBloPoMo - is a challenge in which participants write a blog post every day throughout November.

I wrote down a quote recently from Hayley Hughes’ talk at Clarity 2022.

Working - as I do - at the intersection of content design and design systems, I’m often thinking about ways of improving design system documentation.

I imagine a hierarchy of the painful scenarios around the issue of having children, and I consider where it’s fair to place myself, and I always conclude it’s somewhere near the bottom.

Every now and then I run into the question of whether design systems should document and distribute components and patterns that we don’t really want system users to use.

As the design systems space has matured, our understanding of what they entail and how to approach the work has naturally converged.

Periodically and inconsistently - but roughly once a month - I run a free Zoom session called Design Systems Open Space.

What does coffee mean to you?

Dear male ego, It’s not you - it’s me, after dealing with you and all the yous that came before you.

One of the most common promises we make when making an investment case for design systems is that they’ll reduce or completely eradicate duplication of effort.

Last week I headed to the coast for my first time at FF Conf - an annual web conference held in Brighton.

This post is based on my recent talk, Building conscious design systems, which I gave at WDC and GOV Design Systems Day.

At the time of writing this, many people are setting up Mastodon accounts - an open source social media platform - in response to Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter.

Jargon is defined as “special words or expressions used by a profession or group that are difficult for others to understand”.

End of list.

Over the past few years, there’s been a significant shift in the way I think about the work of creating design systems.

Recently, I’ve noticed an uptick on my Twitter timeline of people stating, with frustration, that a Figma library is not a design system.

It’s OK to… know you want a to make a change but not what change to make take your time not know what you think not live every day like it’s your last not have an opinion hold back from sharing an opinion want to share an opinion, without knowing what your

On Wednesday and Thursday this week, I went to Leading Design conference at The Barbican in London.

Last year, I worked on a service designed to help children and young people find support for their mental health.

It’s becoming increasingly unfashionable to cite “consistency” as a goal for design systems.

For the second year in a row, I’ve decided to take part in National Blog Posting Month, or “NaBloPoMo”, for short.

This article is based on a talk I delivered at Converge London 2022 - here's the video in case you'd prefer to watch it.

I co-authored this post with Caroline Jarrett and Ignacia Orellana In our last blog post collaboration, we talked about how to share research in design systems.

One of the most common pieces of feedback I give to design system teams about their documentation is this: write using the active voice.

This post is based on my recent talk, Design Systems for Humans, from this year’s UX London.

When we talk about how to incentivise design system contribution, something that comes up in almost every discussion is accreditation: Can we recognise design system contributors with a public acknowledgement of their work on a component or pattern?

Content warning: Racist language This post discusses a term that’s commonly used to describe design patterns that cause problems for users.

I co-authored this post with Caroline Jarrett and Ignacia Orellana “Use this because we said so” is not a convincing strategy for building trust with designers and developers who want to, need to, or are told to, use a design system.

I’m now working on my second multi-brand design system and am again facing the challenge of how to structure, write and present documentation for 3 different brands.

So here we are for the final installment of National Blog Posting Month 2021 (NaBloPoMo).

In 1941, my grandmother—my Dad’s Mum—was at home celebrating her daughter Joanna’s 2nd birthday.

I’ve been thinking lately about how a lot of anxiety-management advice can feel quite vague.

A couple of years ago I was walking through London with 2 of my friends.

It’s just that: I’ve been totally swamped at work I’ve not been feeling well this week I was having a panic attack I’ve been thinking about how our society prioritises instant gratification too much and I’m busy writing you a letter My cat required my att…