Design Systems that Work: Bridging Design, Development, and Business

We are thrilled to invite you to our first virtual event of 2025 on Thursday, Jan. 23rd at 7:30 pm EST. In this insightful presentation, we’ll cover the important topic of Design Systems!

Whether you’re a seasoned UX professional, an emerging talent, or simply curious about design systems, prepare to be inspired, motivated, and empowered to become a champion for consistency throughout the user experience.
We’ll start off the event with a presentation, and end with a Q&A session, so you can get answers to all your questions.

Event Details
Design systems have evolved from simple style guides to complex, living tools that shape how organizations design, build, and scale digital products. But just having a design system doesn't guarantee its success – many become stale documentation that teams ignore, expensive component libraries that no one implements, or overly rigid frameworks that stifle innovation.

This session explores what makes design systems genuinely effective, drawing from real-world successes and failures. We'll examine how successful systems bridge the often conflicting needs of designers, developers, and business stakeholders, creating a shared language that aligns teams and accelerates product development.

You'll learn practical strategies for building and scaling design systems, including how to structure cross-functional teams, manage stakeholder expectations, and balance consistency with innovation. Whether you're new to design systems or looking to improve an existing one, you'll walk away with actionable frameworks for creating systems that teams actually want to use.
Topics include:

• Evolution and core components of modern design systems
• Cross-functional team structures and governance models
• Strategies for balancing innovation with consistency
• Techniques for measuring system adoption and success

Speaker Bio
Mike Bowser, Design Director and Design Systems Consultant, is a mission-driven UX designer and systems thinker focused on designing systems and product experiences that improve customer outcomes. Mike has extensive experience building and leading design teams, fostering cross-functional partnerships, and leading successful design systems at scale.

Over the past two decades he’s worked with organizations large and small, enabling digital product teams to design, prototype, and accelerate building cohesive, modern, and intuitive product experiences.
Mike lives in Jersey City, NJ and is happiest when traveling to interesting places with his wife and twin teenagers.

You can learn more about him at linkedin.com/in/mikebowser.

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Thank you to Professor Rupa Misra and Rutgers University for their sponsorship of this event.

Note: Our UXPA NJ chapter is developing a sponsorship program for organizations, so that they can additionally support and assist our UXPA chapter in serving our growing community. For more information about some possible ways that your organization can further support our mission, reach out to Aurelia Kare at aureliakare@gmail.com.

Agenda
7:30 - 7:45 pm: Welcome, announcements, job seekers/offers
7:45 - 8:45 pm: Speaker presentation, followed by Q&A
8:45 - 9:00 pm: Closing
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Time: Thursday, January 23st, 07:30 Eastern Time (US)