Style Guide Best Practices

Designers are asked to create experiences that look and work well across a dizzying array of devices and environments. That is a tall order on its own, and once you add team members, clients, stakeholders and organizational quirks, it can look downright intimidating. With so many variables, teams need solid ground to stand on.

In this talk from beyond tellerrand 2015, Brad Frost, who helped create Pattern Lab and Styleguides.io, makes the case for style guides as foundational tools for an increasingly diverse web. Style guides promote consistency, establish a shared vocabulary, make testing easier and lay a future-friendly foundation. Brad details best practices and considerations for creating and maintaining them, so an organization is set up for success.

A shared pattern library works in a similar way across teams, and the UI-Patterns.com library is one example of documenting recurring interface solutions with a common vocabulary.