| Thank you for the detailed write up! I have to agree with a sibling comment: > > I chalk this up as a design system win more than Tailwind. Any well-defined design system would open up these collaboration benefits. I found Tailwind to be an asset to these both for my own DX and for collaboration with my designer.
>
> Yeah, this seems like the real takeaway
And to add:> Our designer was using the Tailwind Figma file for the redesign with most of the defaults in place. I never really thought of Tailwind as something that provides design primitives designers could also use for their designs. If everyone on the team knows how to use Tailwind, I can see how it helps productivity. Everyone's using the same primitives and they're speaking the same design "dialect" (for a lack of better word). Your example with negative/white space units is a really great, because it illustrates how it dispells ambiguity around units and numbers, and it brings an vocabulary for talking about those units. For example, I really like that `p-3` means the same thing to both the designer and the developer now. Before a designer would have some systems for managing various design sub-systems (ie typography, colour, spacing), that developers rarely (ie never) spend time understanding, which then removed the system's internal consistency, which in turn affects its perceived/external consistency. Tailwind kinda leaks the design-system's implementation details, which is great for developers, because now they don't have to know anything about design systems, just use what the designer provided. |