Overview
During my time at Krumware, I built out a functional design system with over 750 components that was used on over a half dozen different developer applications and custom internal developer platforms (IDPs).
The design system is currently available to Krumware clients (with a pathway to becoming fully open-source within the next year).
Why Create Trailhand?
IDPs are notorious for having poor user experiences and interfaces. They're traditionally created by development and platform teams without the input of designers, and are built quickly, on the fly, as developer needs come up.
Spotify created Backstage, and did so with massive success. The main limitation, however, was that it was tied to React and Node.js. We built Trailhand to be entirely framework agnostic so that it could be adopted by any developer team, whether they're built with React and Node.js, or not.
Construction and Functionality
The design system utilizes most of the DS management / functionality offered by Figma, including (but not limited to) auto-layout, primitive and theme variables (light and dark mode), styles (text, color, effects, layout grids), and version control.
By creating an organized and functional foundation, changes are easy to make and apply to the entire design system with a single click.
Trailhand in the Wild
The first project that was built with Trailhand was Epinio, an open-source project created by SUSE, now maintained by Krumware.
Epinio is an open-source developer platform that turns Kubernetes deployments into a single command, so that developers don't need to know Kubernetes.
The Trailhand Ecosystem
A design system is more than just a Figma component library. A “component” is something entirely different to each role within a technical organization.
Because the actual design of each component is entirely flexible to allow organizations to apply their own brands and styles, we converted the components into a Storybook repository to facilitate design to developer handoff.
Trailhand is delivered to clients with extensive documentation to help other design teams and developers easily adopt the system. The entire design system was built with designer and developer experience in mind, because UX principles can be applied to internal team members, not just product end users!
Let's connect
Looking to have a conversation? Reach out!
Whether you're a hiring manager looking to chat, a junior designer looking for mentorship, or an event coordinator interested in me speaking… drop a line!