Today I went for a trip to Guitar Center to purchase a new MIDI controller. This got me thinking.

Back in the old days of music recording all you had was a 2-track recorder. You had to do everything in one take. It didn’t matter if songs or instruments were similar you had really one shot at it.

Today modern software makes it dead simple to take loops and samples and repackage them. You can find a sample library for almost any genre of music. A quick Google search turned up this sample library for Country Folk.

Country Folk Video Screenshot

Just like the creators of this sample library tried to have empathy for the Country Folk Producer, you must have empathy for your engineers.

Try to put yourself in their perspective and think about what they want to create with your designs. Try to put them in the best possible position to succeed. Be very specific and intentional.

What you want is a bunch of useful loops (patterns or components in web parlance) in an organized fashion that will be intuitive and easy to use.

Now instead of having to do everything in one take (2-track recording style) they have something like a massive groove box where they can punch components in and out and use them in much more creative ways. All without having to understand the little details that makes up each component.

Design Systems Engineering allows you to take your web product workflow into the 21st century where you can work fast, intuitively and most of all consistently.