Docs First, AI-Ready Design Systems with Afyia Smith

Brad: [0:12] Afyia Smith. Hello. afyia smith: Hi, how are you?

Brad: [0:15] I'm doing great. what has you waking up excited these days? afyia smith: I don't know that I can answer that without giving you the backstory. Um, we know each other, Brad, we're all friends and you know, my background looks different 'cause I'm in a different place. my son Chase, he's 16 and he's, uh. Receiving some medical treatment. So this is kind of like a medical leave, is requiring us to relocate to Tampa

Brad: [0:41] Whoa. afyia smith: unspecified amount of time. So what that means is I've had to pack my shit up my dog and my kid move to a place I've never lived in an air, Airbnb that I've never been in on, a block I've never lived on, and just all the new things. So, long story short, what has me waking up excited is every day I've chosen to explore a new part of the town and drink a cup of coffee in a new coffee shop. That's just what I've been spending my days doing. so I'm excited today after I hang out with you try out this new, coffee shop. They have, they do experimental coffee with a little bit of, you know, good stuff in it and just, uh, I don't know, hang out and people watch, I

Brad: [1:23] Wow. afyia smith: get my kid.

Brad: [1:25] Wow. That, that's, that is huge. That it's, you just described, it's just like, sometimes there's new chapters of a career or sometimes there's new chapters of, of life or, you know, chase 16. Oh my God. afyia smith: yeah,

Brad: [1:40] uh, you afyia smith: yeah.

Brad: [1:42] Yeah. 'cause he, he wasn't 16, whatever we first met up. so, so there's these different new phases, but it sounds like you're just getting a mega dose of new all at once. afyia smith: Yeah. So the other new that I think you're, talking about is newly separated from Epic Games, which I

Brad: [2:04] Okay. afyia smith: there for a few years, and so I'm, I'm navigating the career waters or wherever, wherever that might take me. But also life happens. I knew for maybe six months to a year that I would eventually have to do this thing. This

Brad: [2:20] Yeah. afyia smith: this is by far the hardest, uh, emotionally, uh, mentally, physically, financially. And I think that was part of the fair and then epic kind of just like I, I, let's call it a blessing in disguise. It really just forced my hand.

Brad: [2:35] Yeah. afyia smith: to do it because medical is running out

Brad: [2:38] Yep. afyia smith: right. And I need it to, um, care for my son. also, I'm free of time. I no longer need to worry about what's gonna happen at work if I

Brad: [2:46] Yeah. afyia smith: a medical leave or,

Brad: [2:48] Yeah. afyia smith: you know, and I didn't want that spotlight on me. And, um, yeah, I just, I don't know, I think the very next day that when I knew that, you know, maybe Epic was, you know, no longer, you know, um, the future for me that I decided to just go ahead and make the arrangements to care for my kid and, and just come out, out here

Brad: [3:06] Wow. Wow. afyia smith: are and I don't know how long I'll be here. And that's part of the anxiety slash excitement.

Brad: [3:11] Yeah. afyia smith: Tampa's a cool city. It's an old city. It's walkable, which is not, it's the opposite of Orlando. We don't walk anywhere. I've just been exploring and I, my dog loves it 'cause she, we're in a development, she's got a yard, she just hangs out out there. We, I literally, I walk her now three times a day. I've got the time to do it

Brad: [3:30] That's amazing. afyia smith: it and I kind of love it 'cause seeing people, seeing faces and getting some fresh air and exercise and it's great.

Brad: [3:40] You're, you're explaining this very well, which is, it's like, there's obviously, you know, the, a backdrop of, of multiple dimensions of, of kind of hard, but at the same time, you're describing an attitude of, leaning into it, embracing it, being curious, being exploratory with it, and, and kind of being open to the idea that even though this is kind of a, what's in front of you is, is unknown, that there's, there's almost a bit of, uh, I'm, I'm hearing a, like a, a trust in, in that kind of unknown a little bit, where it's like, you, you know, you're just gonna be on this journey and you're, you're in a, a particular place right now. But you also know that, that you, you're moving forward and just kind of put one foot in front of the other. afyia smith: yeah, you're right. I mean, 'cause the opposite of that is just being extremely, just boxed in and worried and

Brad: [4:38] Yeah. afyia smith: nervous and you can't, I, you can't, I can't move in fear, know? I need to have some optimism about the future. even if that means just going through it day by day, you know? You know, in the past, and maybe even still, I had tons of anxiety about I would make five year plans and, and year long plans and what's gonna happen next month and

Brad: [5:00] Yeah. afyia smith: you know, I did all of that. But the very freeing thing that has come with just like the ending of things and the beginning of things is just that it's that it's no longer what you knew it was. It's new enough to not know what it's gonna be, and you just,

Brad: [5:16] Yeah. afyia smith: you're living in that limbo land.

Brad: [5:18] Yeah. afyia smith: just, just figuring it out and, I'm proud of myself, I wanna say,

Brad: [5:24] Oh yeah. As you should be. afyia smith: Yeah. It's, it's a different person than, you know, than I was even, I don't know, a year ago.

Brad: [5:32] that's amazing. Yeah. there's a lot of effort that goes into cultivating that attitude that, that you're describing there, because the anxiety and the fear, obviously they're, they're still there, they're still present, you know, obviously, like, whenever, whenever you're, you're going through hard things, there's, there's no getting around it. And I think that that's, like something that I've seen a lot in my own life and people in my life is that they're just like, man, what's wrong with me? Like, why am I like so, you know, freaked out by this, like, I should be okay with, it's like, well, you know, all of these things exist and they can coincide, but it's kind of like, what? What do you want to sort of focus on or prioritize or, or let in? And it's like the, the anxiety and the fear. If you could keep that at like a low hum and, but let more of the curiosity and exploration and what's next and the, the optimism kind of be the thing that's really kind of driving that. That's good. afyia smith: things. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad: [6:35] 'cause flipping that around when you don't let a lot of that in. You then feel almost silly or guilty for feeling optimistic or hopeful or anything like that. And I've seen that and it's, it's, it's genuinely tragic. 'cause like people are just like in that space and they, they, they're like, I don't want to be here. But like, it seems almost trite to even just kind of like, let that hope in. So it's like you really gotta like go all in. afyia smith: Oh yeah.

Brad: [7:07] you, you, you need to do that important work of like the, the seesaw of like kind of getting over that, that that teeter totter of like, it's coming more on the side of optimism than it is on, on the side of afyia smith: Yeah.

Brad: [7:21] the, the, fear and, and doubt afyia smith: Agree. Definitely. Yeah. It,

Brad: [7:26] Wowee Zowee. afyia smith: it's a

Brad: [7:27] yeah. So, so you're, you're in this very important moment in time. You've historically done a lot of of different, like how I know you as one of the rare souls, uh, who actually cares about documentation and, and sweats the details on this stuff, that, that has always just kind of been in the back burner, uh, for so many people. It's just like a low priority. And this particular moment in time is this like your, like had I told you so moment in that respect? afyia smith: Yeah, I'm like giggling in the background with the evil. No. Yeah, I just said it to you. Docs are having a moment now.

Brad: [8:11] Yeah. afyia smith: you know, with all this, with ai, being part of the, the, the tools that we use are entering the, the workflow workflows. Um, So to sum, sum it up for those people that are listening or watching that don't know who I am or what I do, I'm Afyia Smith and, you know, I am a design systems practitioner, but I focus almost exclusively on documentation. writing it, Managing it, publishing it, um, creating the structure that supports it. Um, docs are the things that I love to do, and I do that for design system teams. I did that for Epic for about five years. Um, and I've, you know, done some independent consulting along that way, Brad. That's how you and I know each other. today docs seem to be by far one of the, the, the, the most, well, a very important, uh, or foundational piece of design systems, especially design systems, teams that are using AI or building AI with it, of that good stuff. It's not, it's no longer just like this nice to have thing anymore, you know? And that makes me happy. That makes me happy. that's the work that I've done and that's the work that I'm interested in, in doing and continuing to do. And, and of course push it further. I think. I'm no longer in that, oh, it's ai, let's just everything. I'm not in that phase of it anymore. I'm, I'm thinking about what can we do that's possible that, that we couldn't do before?

Brad: [9:42] Yeah. afyia smith: so I'm, you know, I'm, I did a lot of experimenting and exploring while I was at Epic, and now I'm doing that on my own and, you know, figuring things out.

Brad: [9:52] it's, it has to be pretty validating. I think it's like all of your, your kind of hard efforts to date of just kind of like sweating the details, spelling things out, defining the things that it's like, oh, all of a sudden, like, this is, this is immensely valuable. This is actually what makes these systems, you know, uh, uh, accessible to these age agentic systems. And like you're able to articulate. Here's what this does, here's how to use it, here's what not to do about it, and all of that stuff. And we're, I've, I've been iterating over our own system, um, kind of pointing it at our own sort of tools and stuff, and boy oh boy, it's like been lacking in that department. And so it's been a really fascinating adventure to go, okay, how do I tell the story of how I want these UI to, to come to life and all of that stuff. And I need to, like, have words to it. And I need to make sure that the structure is in place and that it's like easily, uh, accessible for the human beings that I'm working with as well as for these like machines. And, and so that there's been like all sorts of really fascinating things because. What humans read and what is helpful for them and what like the, the agents need in order to assemble and compose things are, are sometimes like different, it's almost like a different vernacular or, or dialect or something. Uh, but it's still at its heart. It's just natural language describing, here's a button, here's what to do with it, here's an accordion, here's like what that is, and, as you bid on this journey. ' dabbling in ag agentic stuff since, pretty much since like chat GPT kind of hit the scene. how you see that progression and like, kind of like where you see the, the arc going in, in your own craft in just kind of in in general. afyia smith: yeah, so like I said in the beginning, in the, especially in the beginning of chat GPT days, we were what could a, what was the possibility of AI as it relates to documentation?

Brad: [11:59] Right. afyia smith: generation of course, faster generation, more docs out there. Um, I gave a talk about no one's reading docs, no one's writing docs. And I talked about the blank page and how chat GPT can kind of be used to move non-technical or non-writer a place where they can start to draft their own pieces of documentation. Um, and that was great. That was a great phase to be in. Um, and then, you know, slowly it started to be like, okay, the more I do this and the more that I teach people how to do this, and the more that chat GPT can do this, what am I doing? Who am I, what is it that I need to be thinking about now? And you know, from that point I started to kind of think about the things that couldn't be done before. You know, I, I talked a lot about the, that whole, uh, just in time docs, um, process where, you know, designers and devs, they're all, they're in these tools and maybe they wanna surface information when they need it and they can't because it's sitting somewhere in a static reference site that no one knows about. And started experimenting with how AI could help with that. and did a lot of exploring and got some parts of the way there. Um, but today, and even just over the past few months, in my last few weeks at Epic, I started to think more about like, You know, what documentation needs to provide in order for not only the humans to read it, but the ais to consume it. So we're writing for different audiences, humans, designers and developers, new users onboard people that need to be onboarded, uh, leadership, stakeholders, all of that. And now the robots, the machines, right.

Brad: [13:36] Yeah. afyia smith: Well, what does that mean? Is that like 20 pieces of docs? No, I don't have the time for that. I was the, the doc lead at Epic. I did it for two design systems. I was not writing 20 different pieces of documentation. I was starting to think about a single doc that's, that could be served up to all audiences, AI included. and you know, that's just about structuring it. And if we think about the, the layers of that, it's the, the, the context layer and then the, layer. I call that knowledge layer that, AI needs not only to know what a thing is, but is it this thing, you know, the, the, the intent, the reasoning, why couldn't that be done from a single documentation? That is what I'm exploring. So it's a, it's a docs first kind of

Brad: [14:29] Yeah, afyia smith: a docs first method. I don't know, docs first for design system teams. Why

Brad: [14:36] I, afyia smith: Why not? I think docs have not had the importance that design and code has had for quite some time. It's

Brad: [14:43] yeah. afyia smith: like left to the last or not done at all. Or just like

Brad: [14:47] Yep. afyia smith: by like a UX writer, which, know, grateful for the UX writers, but this is not that. let's not automate it away. keep the humans in their jobs. I, I am, by the way, a proponent for human authorship for humans in this work. but yeah, I just, I'm, I, I was, I'm hoping that, or I'm wondering if there are folks out there, teams out there, orgs out there that are thinking about it in the way that I am. Um, and this is my plug, you know, if you are, I'd love to chat.

Brad: [15:16] Hell yeah, yeah, yeah. afyia smith: is the work I'm interested in doing. I don't know. Brad, what do you think about all

Brad: [15:22] No, I, afyia smith: said?

Brad: [15:23] you turned over a lot of stones there, and I think that, that the, they're all really good and boy oh boy has that I'm guilty as charged, where it's just like the, we do the work, we, you know, we, we talk about it, we design it, we build it, and then kind of like the cherry on the top is like the documentation, like before you like, kind of get it out the door. That, that has been kind of the, the workflow kind of in this, in the before times. And then I think like what you're describing and what kind of, where I'm seeing a lot of like the industry shift and our, our friend Kevin Coyle, uh, is also been like beating this drum for a while and stuff as well, where it's just like, oh yeah, here's, you know, these, these kinds of requirements. So we're, we're just kind of articulating, using words what it is we want, this, this thing to be. And the, the specific implementation, right? The specific design, the specific like tech implementation is, is just that, is is an implementation of it. So it's like you, you have to get. Down to some pretty existential truths about kind of what is this thing, what are, what are like the objective facts of this thing. But then what you're talking about is that this, this kind of context layer that kind of sits behind it where it's just like, oh, here's, here's in, in the context of this organization, here's why this kind of matters. Somebody that's a new hire that just got onboarded, or an agent that's trying to assemble these things into a, a, a piece or whether that's a, a, a new agency partner that is like trying to understand, uh, get their, get their bearings working with this system. That specific perspective matters afyia smith: Mm-hmm.

Brad: [17:13] that's where these, these LLMs are, are quite. Good at translating some things that feel sturdy, durable, true, into something that is like contextualized to, to them and their specific context. And that, that for me has been like super duper welcome in so many realms where it's like I don't have to just go read some stuff and then have my brain have to do a bunch of different laps to bring it into my specific world. I could instead just say, here's what I have in front of me. Here's what I'm looking at, here's what I need, what do I need to know in order to, to do this properly? And then it tells a coherent story. Like, it, it, it weaves it into my context. So it's like, it's this, this really beautiful kind of blender or marriage of like. Here's these kind of just inert objects, these, these UI elements that don't really do a lot on their own, but it's really in the context of how they get used, where they, where they come to life and, and the docs is, is now this, this really kind of beautiful mortar that kind of like glues it all together. afyia smith: Yeah.

Brad: [18:32] is there like a threshold being across where, where writing the docs primarily for agents first and then like humans as like kind of a, a happy byproduct of that? afyia smith: You know, and I did, uh. Some of these experiments, over at Epic because I just for myself, wanted to understand how AI ready was the docs. Like what, what I, I had a hunch that I was, I was writing some pretty good docs to begin with. Like, they were, were consistently structured. They had all the information that required. We, we were good on capturing edge cases, use cases, rationale. We were good on capturing behavior. We were really good on getting the things that were sitting in the minds of people onto paper.

Brad: [19:19] Beautiful. afyia smith: were really good at that. when we ran some, when we ran our, our experiments, minus maybe just a few fields that needed to be captured, the, the, the machines, the, the LLMs really understood, the documentation was pretty understandable to the, a ai, would say maybe 80% of the way. when I think about what needed to change for this, the docs that I was writing specifically to be able to be readable by humans and usable by ai, it's just a matter of two or three different fields. And I can tell you what those were. We weren't probably capturing tokens in the right word. We weren't really writing accessibility in a structured way. It was more, prose. It was more about like, you know, just like gentle talk about it. It wasn't as specific as it needed to be. and so when I realized that the way that I was structuring it was good enough and working, I thought I might be able to create a standard, a template could, that anybody, uh, any team could use to be able to create a single author doc that would serve humans, humans, and ai and whatever else is in

Brad: [20:27] Whatever else is coming. yeah, it's such a theme of this stuff, and as we're putting our, like AI and design systems course together, and, uh, our friend TJ Petri is like, the way he describes it is, is like, there's like the check engine light. And it's like for a lot of the work that tees have been doing over the years, just like you were saying, whenever chat GPT hit the scene, and it's like starting to like do that work of like authoring, like the basic, you know, button documentation and whatever, and then you're like, wait, what's like my job? It's like, oh, it turns out that there's like, That's just the table stake stuff. That's not the stuff that is like, that's not your value as, as a really like intelligent person. Like you understand like the, the, the terrain, the landscape, how these things are getting used. That stuff is ultimately, I don't wanna say chore work, but it's table stakes work that is like, kind of like, again, address the check engine light, where it's like if you have a bunch of gaps, like if you're not, past Afyia, that's already structuring things really well and providing a lot of like context. If it's just like, oh, we gotta hunt all these different people down to find out why these things are, uh, the way they are. It's like doing that work and getting that stuff in place is really the, the table stakes work so that you're able to move on to the parts where you're like, cool, here's us actually wielding all of this stuff together to do useful things with it. And I this is what I am seeing and would love to get your take on it, is, is like there's, there's a, a form of liberation that is happening that is like freeing people up to be able to, to sort of like, move closer to one another, be more connected because we're, we're no longer just like, you know, drawing the rectangles and manually describing, uh, what those rectangles do. afyia smith: I felt a lot of what you're saying or learned about a lot of that, just, I worked with a team a while ago, where they did all that work and they worked in that way where, you know, uh, engineering just sat on their side and designers just sat on their side and there was duplication everywhere. also no one agreed on a lot of things. And I came on board to help navigate the documentation and I was just like, Hey, let's do something. take the simple Google Doc. I'm just gonna draft what I think you did, engineering what I think you did, designer, and we're all gonna get into this Google Doc hash it out. And that was like, that was such a, a huge moment for me and my role as a documentation person. I'm not just. Copying what they did anymore or waiting for them to finish. I'm like, I'm orchestrating a little

Brad: [23:18] Yeah. afyia smith: I am like now at the top and saying, Hey, what you guys have in places doesn't really align.

Brad: [23:25] Mm-hmm. afyia smith: get together and figure this thing out. Now that you think you've drawn a square or a button or a rectangle, and they're saying you didn't, and they're calling it something else and you're calling it this, what's really going on here? I wrote something up about it. It's in my profile, it's called Written in the Margins, and it literally is, I threw in all the screenshots of a Google Doc with all of these comments from all the different players, all the different people on the team, and we, I think one of the, um, discussions was just the naming. it was liberating. It was fun. It was in, it was interesting. It was also, um, really hard work. It was getting people aligned on the same page and the starting point for all of this really was just a documentation.

Brad: [24:04] yeah. afyia smith: Let's write down what's in your brain, what you are thinking, what you meant, what this thing really does, what it's about. Why did you do it, let's just move from there.

Brad: [24:15] That's, afyia smith: moves from just being descriptive, right? It's definitely a clarifier, but maybe it's also the definition of done,

Brad: [24:24] yeah. afyia smith: right?

Brad: [24:25] Yeah. afyia smith: when docs are done, we're done.

Brad: [24:28] Yeah. afyia smith: maybe, maybe that's what we call that. Maybe, you know, maybe that's how we should think about it.

Brad: [24:34] Yeah, afyia smith: Maybe not, you know, not done in the sense that it's the last thing. It shouldn't be. It's, it should be parallel in, in what design and, and, and dev is doing. But it should be the thing that when, once it's written down, and once we have all of the, the, the reasoning behind the, the what and the why, we're done. you know, this is a written record of a thing. It's, it's, it's readable by the next person coming in. It stands a test of time. You can reference it. you know, that a human wrote it 'cause I, you know, whatever, if you have a special person or someone like me, I wrote it.

Brad: [25:09] yeah, afyia smith: there, I was in the room.

Brad: [25:11] yeah. afyia smith: all the things.

Brad: [25:12] but not only did you write it, you, you facilitated the process, right? Like, so, so what you're, what you're doing is like through this lens of it's just like, let's like zoom out real quick because everybody's spitted their own unique weeds. Uh, let's get together, let's just like zoom out the whole way out, which doesn't happen often enough. And when you get company cultures where these people are talking past. One another, working past one another. And there's these, there's all sorts of friction that emerges. You are there to like, help capture what the truth is, what the story of this thing is. You need to arrive at that truth and what, what, what is articulated in the documentation is needs to be true. afyia smith: Yeah.

Brad: [26:00] when there is at that shared. Truth. That's, that's where the problems emerge. And I, I, I think that this is something that I'm seeing play out writ large here, is that this new era, the teams and the organizations that have that shared sense of, of here's what true is, or a shared narrative of like, here's what this is and here's what it does and whatever. But all of those little cross-disciplinary differences or cross group differences or, yep. Like we do this but we don't agree with them. That stuff is, is amplified big time in this new era. So it's like if everybody is, is pointed in these different directions, all AI is doing is just kind of exacerbating those, those different directions. But for the teams and the orgs that are like, ah, yes. Like we all are using the same names, we're all, we all have the same sort of. Shared reality. this now amplifies that, that alignment And that just like, kind of takes different forms, whether it's pros or you know, a Figma button or, or, or it's something in code or whatever. But ultimately this stuff is, is a shared agreement between humans on like, is is this how we do things or is this not how we do things? like, it requires that human work, the designers are gonna be stung because they actually had a good reason for doing things a certain way, but they just, you need to have that shared understanding. And, and that's, that's the gig. afyia smith: that's right. And

Brad: [27:40] Beautiful. afyia smith: I, I, I think I've just been, I've been pushing for that my entire career, right? There really isn't a lot of us, I think I only know one other person that has done documentation as a documentation person on a design system team, as their sole focus. But honestly, and today, if you're, again, an organization that has a design system and you're wanting to build it with AI or, have AI agents access it, you probably wanna think about having someone, um, that whose focus is on writing this documentation. Because it's more than just writing

Brad: [28:14] Yeah, yeah. afyia smith: more than just like describing a thing. It's, it's focused. the gathering of information. It's the facilitating of. teams. It's, um, it's honoring the, the things that people think are important and allowing them to come to an agreement on it, and then putting all that shit to paper

Brad: [28:33] Yeah. afyia smith: then putting all of those things to paper and structuring it in a way

Brad: [28:37] Yeah. afyia smith: and clear and understandable and

Brad: [28:40] Yeah. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. and, and to sort of come back to, to how we started this conversation, I think that you, your, the, the attitude, your attitude of, of optimism, of, of, of hope, of curiosity, of exploration, all of that comes online, like in that work, right? Like it's, it's, your demeanor, like in your attitude, and, and how you show up as like a human to facilitate that stuff like that could go really poorly if you like show up going, Hey, you're wrong and you're wrong. And like, we need to like fight this out. Like, could you speak a little bit to like the, the showing up the, the, the human side of, of like being like, ooh, like, okay, like here's a little mess I like found, but like, like this is gonna be fun for us to like finally get into it. Like you said, like in the, in the margins and stuff. Like afyia smith: I think I tried, I just try to have a unbiased opinion about anything. I, I, I, and I think my method of maybe drafting just a nothing fancy, we're not even picking a, a platform or a tool that designers are, we're not in Figma and we're not in storybook. We are in a Google Doc, right. Plain blank page. Right. No one, you guys don't have any problems with that, right?

Brad: [29:59] Yep. afyia smith: And let me just, I'll just draft a set of basic usage guidance for a component. This is what we're calling it. This is what it does. All right, let's start from here. This is the starting point. Let's figure out what now. You know, if there's a discrepancy with naming, I mean, I've come up with a, there's been a discrepancy with a button. The naming of a button. It was a button, but you know, even then I have to check myself and say, okay, we'll just figure out what they're calling this thing

Brad: [30:28] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. afyia smith: yeah, you know, when are you using this thing? Why are you using it this way? Just asking really in depth. And also not, not, not very much. Not leading the conversation, but allowing the conversations to take place

Brad: [30:41] yes. afyia smith: questions. I do that asynchronously 'cause I like to meet people where they are. You know, we don't have to all get in the same room together. you know, here's a, here is the draft that I wrote. When you guys have a chance, take a look at it, start dropping in your comments, and then when it gets a little too hairy, maybe we can get together in a room and talk this thing.

Brad: [31:00] Yeah. afyia smith: that's worked. And I managed to, you know, document, a 60 component design system along with about maybe foundational guidance and accessibility and just design principles and what this system is, just all the things related to the, this design system.

Brad: [31:15] Yeah, yeah. It's, it's that, it's, it's getting those important holes filled, that, again, just like kind of bringing this back to, to how we're framing our course's like, is like, yeah, man, that, like, you gotta get that sorted like yesterday. 'cause we got bigger fish to fry. And I think that a lot of the teams that we're seeing are feeling that pressure of, I, I think that there's, there's kind of like an industry or like leadership level pressure to, to kind of be like, we gotta move, like we gotta be like using this stuff. And like a lot of like the teams that, that don't have that, that kind of core center of gravity in place yet, or still have those, those kinds of like. Man, you got, you gotta sort that out because we got places to go. afyia smith: Oh yeah.

Brad: [32:04] And, that's where the, that's where the fun is now. afyia smith: here?

Brad: [32:08] So it's like, so doing that gory work is, is hard. It's thoughtful. It needs to be curated. It needs to be facilitated. And like that is really, uh, it's a, like a cool transition out of what feels like, like the, the, the bulk of your kind of past. Work is like, okay, like let's just like get this stuff like defined and get that in there. And you have like a deep expertise in arriving at that. And now you're able to like, kind of help, help places like go afyia smith: Yeah

Brad: [32:44] places with it. afyia smith: Yes It's a really cool transition and I like it here to be honest I like I I I like that it's not grunt work actually I just like that work I like as much as I love writing and in the past may have loved the heads down work just because of my personality I feel like I'm a little bit introverted and I just love getting at it But it's far more meaningful to be able to explain the decisions of you know of the engineering team or of designers to explain those decisions and make those things clear not just to users of the system but to them to

Brad: [33:19] Yeah. Yes. afyia smith: that feels so good me

Brad: [33:24] That's amazing. I, I, I wanna pick at that because I think that that what you just described of like the, the like kind of introverted tendencies. I think like we've seen that in a lot of different, again, back to like the, the kind of insular or inward facing kind of design, uh, systems people. I think that if people are like, oh, just like, yeah, let me put my headphones on and I'm just gonna be like sweating the details of this, uh, you know, token system or whatever it is for the next few weeks and, you afyia smith: Yeah

Brad: [33:57] hold my calls. I'll be like, in my happy place. Just kind of head down doing that. you're now able to move towards more of like a, a social and, and collaborative kind of environment and, and, and you're able to spend more time there because. Uh, the, the mechanical parts of, of the, the drafting and the writing are, are a little bit more efficient. So you're able to exercise your, your collaborative and, and, communicative powers, in this way. Ha. Has that been like a shift? introvert versus extrovert. Some of that stuff's like pretty hardwired afyia smith: I think honestly in the beginning um the the heads down work was just by nature how everyone else was working They didn't really you know being brought on on the at the end of a of when components are completed or or or code is already written Doesn't really allow room for me to other than maybe initial user interviews and talking doesn't allow room for folks to collaborate with me on docs A lot of folks are very scared to write They are intimidated by the process and they'd rather just or they don't like it and they'd rather just have someone come in and do that work

Brad: [35:07] Yep. afyia smith: and you know I as much as I try to maybe push back on some of that and get some collaboration it didn't happen And I think I fell into that groove of just

Brad: [35:17] Yep. afyia smith: write I'll just write it It's no big deal I love it anyway but not now You know that that's a that's long gone That is not anymore I think this is or or meaningful and that doesn't like make me happy to to work in that way I truly think that you know the part about being in working on design systems and working in a design system team is a collaboration part It's what I love

Brad: [35:42] Yeah. Yeah. afyia smith: a value now for me um with any company or any organization that I'm working with in the future I I I need that kind of I that kind of community that that collaboration that

Brad: [35:52] Yeah, afyia smith: I I need to have that

Brad: [35:54] I, I think that that's, that's beautiful. That's 100% I think where, things need to go. And again, kind of coming back to, to these kind of old processes or like this old, oh yeah, we're misaligned and here's these, like divides between designers and developers. I think, I think that like, one of the biggest things that I am so jazzed about is the ability to have time together be actually like, productive and, and useful, right? The fact that we're just able to like transcribe what we're talking about because it's like being transcribed into words that we're able to like put those words to, to use and we're able to, like, like you said with like that, that Google doc, where it's like, okay, like let's, like. Get together here. What do we agree on? Like, yeah, that sounds good. Yeah, that sounds good. Okay. That we check, right? Like that we, we came to this agreement on that, this is our collective understanding of this, and we were able to do that not by passing a freaking Jira ticket back and forth to each other, but we were able to just like get together as humans do and, and converse and talk and say, oh, okay, yeah, like that, that sounds good. And oh yeah, here's the rationale behind this. And oh, cool. Now all of a sudden that's captured, that gets thrown into the pile, into the stew. All of a sudden, our humanity is back, right? We've had these artificial. Separations, right? This This, this Henry Ford assembly line that, and you described it perfectly. You're just, you know, you're trying to do your part, you're trying to be, uh, respectful of existing processes. You're not I've, through my own kind of consulting work over the years, usually quite deferential to how people are working. And so that means that I've been. Plugged into a whole bunch of lousy processes, and now I'm just like, great. We could get the designers, the developers, the the QA engineers, the, the, the business analysts, the like, everybody, like, just get everybody in the room together and let, let's collectively paint a picture of what we want. And that just kind of comes out as language. And that that doc's first approach that you're sort of talking about afyia smith: that's right

Brad: [38:07] set the stage for, for anything that, that gets implemented It's wild. It's wild and I'm so here for it. I'm so here for it. afyia smith: yeah I feel like this this idea that I'm proposing or this this thing that we're talking about I don't even know what it is idea methodology I don't know But I feel like docs first does bring humans keeps the humans

Brad: [38:29] yep. afyia smith: loop and it brings us closer Whereas I think what I'm seeing is the humans are being pushed out or they're now all of a sudden am I a designer Well what am I now Am I an AI wrangler I'm not doing what what I love anymore And I feel like let's not do that to people if they don't wanna do that what do you think Brad Do you think there's room for everyone at the table The humans and the robots I I I think so of

Brad: [38:55] yeah afyia smith: of I

Brad: [38:56] yeah. afyia smith: so

Brad: [38:56] like, leaning into this, like how do we, how do we really embrace more of our full humanity rather than being relegated to, ah, yes, this person does this mechanical part of the process. I, I think that that's, that. Has always been sad, right? You have a bunch of really talented designers. You have a bunch of, uh, really talented developers. You have a bunch of really talented people who are living their lives, who come from certain backgrounds, who have specific hobbies, who have specific interests, and all of that just gets kind of lopped off and lobotomized because you are doing this specific role in this specific like lens and the richness of those, the, the rest of life, right? Ha It gets left at the door and that's been said, and I see that as we sort of like. Are able to come together more, we're able to sort of weave more like all of that other richness, uh, to our lives and, and how, how our, our perspectives and philosophies on things and all of that stuff. Like, we're able to bring a lot more of that to the table. And that actually got, kind of gets put in the stew. It's no longer just like the, again, just the, you are, you are a factory worker that's just like punching widgets all day. We're able to sort of exercise more of our, of our human judgment, more of our, our full selves. there, there's a big difference between specialty, right? You're a doc specialist, afyia smith: Mm-hmm

Brad: [40:36] and are expert in that, and I'm always going to trust you to like own or, or think deeper about that stuff than I am going to, right? But then like everybody collectively brings their own expertise. And that's the beauty of diversity. That's the beauty of like this coming together where it's like everybody in aggregate could tell the complete story. No one person has the full story. And it's, it's that getting together that creates that, that sort of shared narrative. Of, of what it is we're doing. And, and so all of those different life paths, all of those different, I've been at the company for 50. I mean, you know this, right? You've like interviewed so many people that are the Oh yeah. Let me tell you about why that is the way it is. That stuff matters, right? And that person knows where the bodies are buried. This other person knows, like where we're trying to go, and you bring it all into one place. So then you're able to like, sort of actually do stuff with it. And it's just, it's, it's so, it's just so much healthier than this like, weird game of of, of kind of connect the dots or, or just kind of pass the PDF off to become, uh, a Figma comp and then pass that off to become code and then pass that off to be documented after the fact. It's, ugh. afyia smith: This is great

Brad: [42:03] yeah. afyia smith: to chat with you I I've been in my head about a lot of this stuff but it's so great to talk it

Brad: [42:08] Yeah. It's, well, it's, it, it's, uh, I'm, I'm fascinated hearing your experience 'cause I, again, it's like you being a specialist is hard and, and like, I, I would love to just like, hear from you about that. 'cause you've always like kinda leaned into that. You're like, yeah, I do documentation. Like, like that, that is like, like a pretty big like part of like your identity. Like I, I guess like in this chapter now where like the, the future is, is wide open now. afyia smith: Yeah

Brad: [42:40] you still feel like that is. Something you are like leaning into or you're just kinda like, you know what, like this is a time to, I moved to a new city and I'm gonna call myself Nicole all of a sudden, something like that. And I know people have done that. Like I know people have just like, you know what? Clean slate, I'm gonna like, you know, that was the old be here's like my new, be like, like curious to get your take on like how you like, identify yourself or how you see your, your identity changing or your, your specialty changing in any way. I. afyia smith: Yeah This is a great question cause I've kind of been just even in like the job search right Just trying to understand a who am I now or and what do I wanna do where do I wanna go I'm still Exploring the landscape I know that documentation is a specialty of mine It's it's near and dear to my heart It's a thing that I love to do I've done it time many times over Maybe it's time to start branching out into something else Maybe it's not just design systems work you know maybe it's knowledge base work Maybe it's knowledge based architecture Maybe it's AI agent architecture Maybe it's a conversational designer right Which is language which is feeding the agents written language How to how they you know it's just there's a lot of different areas that I can explore and I'm open to all of that Um yes that's

Brad: [44:09] That's beautiful. There's the certain activities that you do, but then there's kind of like something underneath that, which is you're like, oh, I like language, I like, I like kind of wrangling things, structuring things, making sense of things. And knowing that about yourself allows you to then sort of look into the future and go, okay, I have these tendencies and I enjoy these types of things and I understand why. Uh, I'm kind of, I gravitate towards those things. And that opens the door to being able to apply those gifts to different things, including things that afyia smith: Mm-hmm

Brad: [44:50] exist before. 'cause like you, your son for instance, is like, you know, as he goes out into the world and, and you know, over the years, which is kind of crazy, it's like that future is, is unknown, right? Is like you, you. You're not gonna be like, I'm gonna be a design system documentarian, like forever. I'm going to be, you know, a doctor and that's going to be my entire career. And, and you know, nothing's ever going to change. Um, that just ain't the case anymore, right? Like, that's not how modern life works. So it's like you seem to have a good understanding of, it's like, ah, yes. Like here's where I've been, here's the types of things and the type of attributes that I have that could be applied to this thing that I've done historically. But now you're able to kind of like, pull that down and like kind of hang out and like you're closer to your like, true self. And then go, okay, cool. Well then how can I apply my, my talents, skills, tendencies to this new world? afyia smith: That's right

Brad: [45:57] Yeah. afyia smith: Um I'm not a stranger to uh turning over a new leave and starting over in something else I in the telecommunications industry I was I I was I did telecommunications for 20 years and then I became a UX designer

Brad: [46:12] Amazing. afyia smith: for a few years and then I fell in love with documentation and Honed in on design system work and really loved that And every phase of that I looked at what it is that I really liked and enjoyed doing and what I was good at and kind of aligned it to the next move

Brad: [46:26] That's beautiful. afyia smith: um you know now I you know I happen to be looking for the next thing for myself and I'm you know kind of looking at inwardly at all the things that I really like to do and seeing what's out there And I'm telling you there it's vast There's a lot of opportunity There's so many different ways that I can that I can uh move and grow and learn and I'm I'm happy to do all of those things so yeah I'm I'm optimistic about next phase or my next

Brad: [46:56] Yeah. afyia smith: next thing that I'm I've been called to do

Brad: [46:59] I, I, I love everything that you're saying, and again, it comes back to that, that optimistic attitude and it's, it, it is that like kind of scarcity mindset that it's just like, oh crap. Like the thing that I've, that I'm historically used to even if it does still exist, it's, it's in a different shape than it once was. Uh for a lot of folks, and we've seen this and I'm seeing this play out in a lot of people, is this, oh, crap, like this thing that I've historically done is no longer the thing that is, is paying the bills. afyia smith: What do I do now

Brad: [47:35] What do I do now? And I think you just, you just described it perfectly. So like, like how do you have any advice? Like, 'cause again, like you are, you're in it like this, this isn't just like hypothetical, like you are like literally, like at this moment and there's, there's a lot of people in this boat as well, like do you, do you have advice for, for people who are looking to kind of like, escape kind of reframe how they exist in this kind of weird nebulous like ether. afyia smith: I don't I you know I only I'm only gonna say what works for me because I think you know my set of circumstances are of course they're unique to me I need I you know is it hard to move on from something you've always known in in a routine know the safety of a of a a great paycheck and a team that you love uh a director that you adore and the work that you adore Yes And you're hoping that you can find it somewhere else but I I need to motivate myself and say maybe it's not gonna be the work that I was doing before Maybe I can have that same love um somewhere else And the the the key there is aligning all of the things that I am really great at doing and seeing what company or what organization or whomever hiring manager um is interested in that stuff And that's part of talking to you I really love the chat that we have because this is just this is me sharing who I am to whoever is interested and whoever is thinking about things in the same way that I am

Brad: [49:09] Yeah. afyia smith: I don't need to to to hide behind who I was before I'm saying plainly This is what I love doing These are my set of skill sets I'm a little introverted I well and sometimes I talk a lot I might overshare I've got a teenager I've got you know life things

Brad: [49:25] Yeah. afyia smith: But also I have great work ethic I not only created a documentation role Epic that was not there before By the way I am one of those people that love roles that have no precedent I love sitting in the thing that's ambiguous and making it my own

Brad: [49:40] Beautiful. afyia smith: a thing that I love to do whatever I'm just using what I have to be motivated to to take on this job search It is not easy It is a feat It might take a while but I I I am sure that there is something out there for me

Brad: [49:56] Yeah. afyia smith: there there are there's a team that is looking to work with someone that is as passionate about this kind of work as I as I am

Brad: [50:05] That's, uh, that's so beautiful. And like that, that last word, like passionate, it's like that I could attest to that as like, see, see that like kind of up close and, and personal. It's like that, that is not, uh, resume speak. That is, that is like live stuff. But, but I think that you're, you're, you're touching on, it's like you have core values. You have like specific things. You have like a good sense of like, it, it sounds like, like a self-awareness and an understanding and a trust in yourself that allows you to sort of like, go out into the kind of brave unknown and into kind of like a scary thing that is, is, is really necessary. And a lot of people are in this boat again. But that willingness to, to really like lean into it, to the point of being inventive with it, where it's just like, ah, yes, I'm able to like, see a need and here's the stuff that I'm so passionate about and it doesn't yet exist, so I'm good to create it. That's freaking beautiful and I wish that more people would do that. afyia smith: Yeah

Brad: [51:08] because I think a lot of people are still just kind of hanging out, waiting for these roles to, to kind of fall out of the sky. And in this age, boy, oh boy, everything is just literally being just unearthed and, and all new ground and terrain is being laid like every single day. So being able to like cultivate that attitude that you just described so perfectly, it's like this, this is a thing. This should be a thing. It's, it's not a thing right now. Like let's make it a thing. it's important and we all need this in order to be successful. Like that's, that's like a real skill un unto itself. 'cause with that in mind, you could kind of go into any landscape, any fast forward five years from now or whatever, there's gonna be yet more new stuff going on, and afyia smith: yeah

Brad: [52:00] you need to be able to like, invent yet another new role and, and, and get into it. Right. So afyia smith: yeah

Brad: [52:06] that's a, real skill to, to cultivate. afyia smith: Well thank you I didn't know I didn't think of it as a skill but you know maybe it is and I think there's a little risk in that too right It's risky

Brad: [52:16] Yep. afyia smith: be you know hire for one thing and come in and do something completely different and that they really love it and and they see the value of it And and then

Brad: [52:24] Yeah. afyia smith: doing that thing

Brad: [52:26] Yeah. afyia smith: don't know I I I don't mind being that person I don't mind living in that space for a little bit I don't mind being in an ambiguous role Um and and and just kind of like forging the path and showing you the value of it I and I think that's why I really like our chat because it just allows me to this is it's kind of like me instead of me going on LinkedIn and rifling through jobs and applying I am advertising am saying Hey this is a thing

Brad: [52:55] Yeah, afyia smith: it a thing and hire me to do that thing

Brad: [52:58] yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And, afyia smith: Yeah

Brad: [53:01] to give permission to, to other people to, to do the same. I think I, I think that that's, like, that's the other thing. And, and like, you like bringing this all, I think like back to your son and like, I have such like an admiration for you raising your boy, like doing all of this stuff, doing whatever is like required in order to like, you know. afyia smith: Yeah

Brad: [53:24] make life work and, and, and have him be sort of healthy and, and happy and on a good path. It's like you have to be resourceful and inventive and willing to, to, to brave that, that stuff, it's like, it's like a real inspiration that like, for be be proud of, of that for your own sake. But I also think that there's like a lot that people can learn from your experience there to be able to like, look at a bunch of hard to be in it, but still be like, yep, we're, we're gonna go out there, gonna find something and if that something doesn't exist, we're gonna invent it and we're gonna like, make it work. Like that's, that's, that's stunning. That's like afyia smith: Yeah

Brad: [54:11] stunning. afyia smith: Thank you

Brad: [54:13] Yeah. Hell yeah. this has been great. Like, thank you so much for, for, for chatting and, um. The only other structure to this show is, is I would love to know what music you would like more people to know about. Could be some old gold, could be what your digging in this moment right now, afyia smith: Well um it's definitely gonna be music people know and it it might be a controversial person and it's only come up because I plan on watching the movie I know it might not be great but I'm a fan I love Michael Jackson and I'm

Brad: [54:48] Yeah. afyia smith: see the Michael Jackson movie and I've been playing his old well not his old stuff his music I would like for people to go back to that off the Wall album That is by far in my opinion his best body of

Brad: [55:04] Yeah. afyia smith: Un debatable Like don't you know this is it you you cannot sway me Um and I just wanna say also it brought me back in in in prepping listening to the music and prepping for the Mu movie brought me back to my love of buying movie soundtracks which first of all I loved I love music and I have a a CD collection of over a thousand cd and I collect vinyl as well

Brad: [55:28] yeah. afyia smith: it brought me back to you know when I was younger and I got my weekly paycheck and I would run off to the record store tower records in New York City soho There were a two floor two story building I go up there and buy my CDs and I would just That would just be it would just it Music is a timestamp first

Brad: [55:48] Yeah. afyia smith: just brings me back to a moment and I love being able to do that streaming and all that other shit killed it for me There's no more of that There's no more record stores But anyway Jackson movies coming out I'm listening to his music I listen to bad I listen to Thriller I listen to Off the Wall and I'm continuing to listen to it And you guys should too

Brad: [56:08] Amazing. Amazing. I think I, I hard agree that it's like that that specific album, uh, is stunning, but it's like, man, oh man. Like just some of like the, the tightest and just it's high art afyia smith: yeah

Brad: [56:25] pop music that afyia smith: Yep

Brad: [56:27] it is, it is truly stunning. And, and that's, that is what's like, so challenging about like, his, I I was even kind of talking about that through the lens of, of AI stuff where it's just like, 'cause in the world of ai there's a lot of like, eh, here's some like, really, like questionable or like dodgy things. But at the same time there's like a lot of. You, you can't take the fact that off the wall is just like some of the best music that humankind has ever produced. And like, you have to be able to like, sit with that and still be able to like, recognize the, the music for, for the, the true art that it is, while also not try to like, you know, we could wish the other stuff away, but you could also just kinda be like, yeah, it's, it's a little, that's hard, but that's like the, the kind of like nuanced kind of world that we live in and stuff. But it's like the, the art itself is just like, my God so freaking good. if you had to put yourself back in that tower records, like what, what, like, aside from maybe that record, what other CDs do you like, have like a vivid memory of buying at that store in soho? afyia smith: Oh, God. Oh, I mean, tower Records was like, I was probably in my twenties, so I loved rap music, loved it. And I bought all my, you know, all the, all the, all the knowns and unknowns. There was a lot of underground music. There was a lot of, um, local rappers from the neighborhood or from Brooklyn where I was born and raised. I'm also a Jamaican American. I'm a first generation American, so there's a reggae, I have a, you know, reggae culture as well. Um, so those are the things that I would go to Tower records and buy. And I remember it vividly. It's a core memory for me because it was, tower records was just like an icon in soho, and it was just. it was the only place you could go and, and, and buy your music. And there was a ritual or routine for me every Friday, every payday on Friday, I would go and spend all my money. I'd be broke by then, by the time I left that place. yeah. And I, I, you know, I have, I still have my CD collection and I think I still remember all the moments I bought each cd. Like I remember my very first CD and I remember where I was when I bought this CD and where, who I was dating or, you know, whatever the case may be. You

Brad: [58:47] Yeah, yeah, afyia smith: that's just

Brad: [58:49] It's, that time capsule. Yeah. afyia smith: Yeah. It's just,

Brad: [58:52] What, was it, what was your first cd? afyia smith: My first CD was Escape. It was an, it's an r and b group. I can't remember the name of, I think it was called, who Can I Run? Who Can You Run to, or Who can I run to? Um, and then after that, my third CD was Lauryn Hills. Miseducation.

Brad: [59:07] My God. What? An album. afyia smith: that,

Brad: [59:09] What an album. That, that one, that one was just, just, I, I think that that's a perfect album. yeah, all the skits and stuff like, and sometimes like skits, like in between. Like, I miss that part of like, you're, you're totally right that like, streaming has like really messed with things and just like singles in general, but like the, the skits on that album are so good and it just all, it's coherent. It's, it's, it's the glue. It, it, it, it really ties the songs together into this, this, this coherent narrative, which is a, a nice like meta bow one on this conversation. But, but that, that album specifically is like, I think it's, it's, I think that it's, I would classify that one as like a, a genuinely like perfect album. Like there afyia smith: It's a perfect

Brad: [1:00:00] no skips. afyia smith: album. and you know that it's classic because it's, I think it's. 30 years later now that, and she's still doing that music, she can still go and do that in concert and we'll

Brad: [1:00:12] Yeah. afyia smith: thousands of dollars to go and see her. And so

Brad: [1:00:15] Yep. afyia smith: stood the test of time. Yeah.

Brad: [1:00:17] yeah. And like even at whenever it came out, it had a timelessness to it because it was so like, throwback to, to that afyia smith: I,

Brad: [1:00:26] know, kind of, yeah. Mo Motown, do wap like, kind of stuff. Like, like there's, there's like a real, understanding, like a deep, deep understanding of like her place in, in music. And the fact that she's able to like, carry that forward even, even now is, is really amazing. So, uh, that's so cool. Yeah. So that was your third, that was your third record. afyia smith: third,

Brad: [1:00:51] Geez. so yeah, so, uh, obviously like over the course of this conversation, it's like. Where, where could people get in touch with you? Like, uh, you know, if, if people are resonating with you, you're, you're looking, looking for work. Like where could they go to find out more about you, follow along with you, with your thinking, your writing, and, afyia smith: uh, well I'm on LinkedIn, Afyia Smith. I have my portfolio, it's Afyia smith.co because someone is holding Afyia do Afyia smith.com hostage and I refuse to pay them $5,000 for it.

Brad: [1:01:21] It's afyia smith: so yeah, that's where I am at. If you want to email me, it's the same thing, my first and last name at Gmail. Um, that's pretty much all the channels. I'm not on I social media. Honestly, if it wasn't for the job search, I wouldn't be on LinkedIn either,

Brad: [1:01:36] Yeah. It's, afyia smith: the truth.

Brad: [1:01:37] you're in good company there. But, but yeah, but I, I do think that, like this moment in time, but just in, in general, I think that, having your own website, even if it's, uh. not the ideal domain. Uh, you'll get it, you'll get it one day, I promise. Um, afyia smith: Yeah.

Brad: [1:01:52] but, uh, but yeah, having your own website, good idea for all the job searchers, I think out there. Uh, but also, yeah, checking you out on, on LinkedIn and connecting with you there. afyia smith: Yeah.

Brad: [1:02:03] definitely encourage people to do that. And again, just, just knowing you over the years and knowing how skilled and and gifted you are, and above all, just like what a, what a great person you are. It's like, it's like, boy oh boy, are, are you, uh, a wonderful addition to, to literally like any team. So I, I really, I know that you're going to, to land in, in a good spot. And in the meantime, best of luck navigating all, all the things. afyia smith: Yeah. Thank you so much, Brad. Thank you for having me on today.

Brad: [1:02:36] Okay? All right. Take care. afyia smith: You too.