iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Annotating UI components and their parts with role patterns to succinctly composite behaviors and accessibility reusable across a library and code generators supporting it. nathanacurtis.substack.com/p/component-... www.specsplugin.com/roles/invent...

nathanacurtis.substack.com

Component and Part Roles as Composites of Behavior and Accessibility

Declare what an element is once so that every platform knows how it behaves

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Three of my teammates have complained in the last two days of future shock. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_...

en.wikipedia.org

Future Shock - Wikipedia

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Well that is about as favorable a Champions League bracket side as Arsenal could have ever imagined.

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Reposted by Nathan A Curtis

SmashingConf @smashingconf.com · 20/01/2026

SmashingConf is back for 2026! We’re bringing thoughtfully curated conferences to Amsterdam 🇳🇱 Freiburg 🇩🇪 and Antwerp 🇧🇪. - Actionable talks on design systems, UX, accessibility, CSS and more - Hands-on workshops - Side events & networking that actually help you connect smashingconf.com/conferences/

smashingconf.com

SmashingConf in-person Conferences 2026 — Friendly, inclusive & fun events for web designers and developers.

Looking for a practical conference about web design and development? We organize three hybrid conferences in 2026: Amsterdam, Freiburg, and Antwerp. Get your ticket now! Front-end, design, UX and…

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 10/01/2026

Why are LLM plans so ridiculously conservative in time estimates? "Your POC will take 1 week and implementation 13 weeks." It just finished the POC (with added scope) in 1 hour and says implementation is now 3 days. Like, is it taunting me with "Without LLM" estimates?

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 10/01/2026

So my now for a Saturday morning instructing an LLM to "Implement REST API conversion a Figma library file into my Anova data model based on Github spec kit's plan and tasks.", going to take a shower, coming back and realizing I didn't autoapprove the CLI commands and it got stuck on step 1.

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

I started using GPT 5.2 (instead of Claude 4.5 or similar) for plugin development yesterday. Today, I noticed the havoc this wreaked on my machine's energy consumption. Holy camole.

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

I hate penalty shootouts in football. I would much rather see a “Remove a player for the pitch every three minutes” and see what happens

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

So, I won "Best Plugin" for the Figma Specs plugin at the @zeroheight.com design system awards last night, and am excited! I told my family, and two my kids reacted this way. I'm now also slightly confused.

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

I am seriously tripping out. I just experienced two agentic "party mode" rounds of a team discussing an ADR of spec data schema updates for absolute positioning and Figma's Grid. Their perspectives were so thoughtful, the decision correct. Is this my (short lived) future before I'm replaced?

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

I have converted my Anova plugin to use Figma color tokens sensitive to Figma's light/dark mode. I like the results, and despite the lack of personality, value that the plugin conveys the same visual language as its parent environment.

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

I'm improving my Anova plugin that generates component specs consistent with a JSON schema to manage specs in the file and easily consolidate and copy them into code.

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

Slots in Design Systems:Improving flexibility through custom composition inside components My latest on Substack nathanacurtis.substack.com/p/slots-in-d...

nathanacurtis.substack.com

Slots in Design Systems

Improving flexibility through custom composition within components

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

As design system teams start applying Figma's slots, they may best cope with having Menzel's "Let It Go" on repeat in the background. Relinquishing control is going to be... very difficult for some people.

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

Analysis of Variants and the Anova Plugin: Generating component data that design systems teams need The Anova plugin, recently released in the Figma community, could be a part of a process that manages component data from (and back into) Figma. medium.com/@nathanacurt...

medium.com

Analysis of Variants

Generating component data that design systems teams need

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Reposted by Nathan A Curtis

Brad Frost @bradfrost.com · 06/10/2025

You know it's gonna be a good week when you start it off talking to DESIGN SYSTEM WIZARDS @nathanacurtis.bsky.social and @bencallahan.com!

Nathan Curtis, Ben Callahan, and Brad on a Zoom call

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

I didn't have Quine-McClusky on my bingo card for things I'd learn about this year, but there you have it. All in an effort to make visible something designers have been implying for years. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine%E...

en.wikipedia.org

Quine–McCluskey algorithm - Wikipedia

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Ben Callahan @bencallahan.com · 19/08/2025

Welcome back to The Question, @nathanacurtis.bsky.social! This week, we're exploring where #AI is failing #designsystems. Answer by Wednesday to get your invite to the deep dive on Thursday at Noon Eastern: bit.ly/answerTheQue... This only works if you join in! See you Thursday, b

Ben Callahan and Nathan Curtis will co host The Question, Episode 060 on Where AI is Failing.

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

Caught a couple Banksys in Park City, Utah

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

I just got called the "Dungeon Master of Design Systems" by a client collaborator. Not sure how to take that one, but sure, let's go on a quest and I'll be your guide!

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Stuart Robson @sturobson.com · 20/06/2025

I've shared this before, but it's awesome. Building Smart Layouts, slides from @ishadeed.com's recent talk @cssday.nl www.figma.com/deck/NewdIWN... #CSS #FrontEnd #WebDev #WebDesign

Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

I'm diving perhaps too deep as I develop teaching materials for UI Component Props. I'm sensing I could do a whole conference talk on tips and tricks for solely enum/variant props.

Table comparing code and Figma approaches to enum/variant props.

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

I'm familiar coding best practices for with Web Components and React when it comes to composition and slots. I'm not much at all with SwiftUI. What resources best explain the equivalent practices for slots on SwiftUI?

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

At @intodesignsystems.bsky.social in a couple weeks, I can't wait to present the various tools I use to communicate component architecture ideas in Figma, including props, enums and layers I combine into an overall "API sketch."

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

I found @katielangerman.bsky.social's spreadsheets in her Config 2025 Connecting Code and Craft talk very similar to my token taxonomy efforts: define 'em, transform 'em, and map 'em to migrate production. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l6E...

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

I am so distracted today by this huge event. So much anticipation. So many exciting things I have waited so long to see. I'm talking about Arsenal vs PSG, people. Go Gunners.

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

One Smashing Conferences event, two Spectacular Components workshops! I'll be leading TWO full day workshops in New York, NY June 23 and 24. The first digs into component structure, purpose, anatomy and styling with design token, the other digs into props, layout and slots.

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

In town for spring break and college visits, a stop at Edmonds Oast Brewery for the Real Madrid match, and I won a @charsenal.com raffle for @arsenalfc.bsky.social merch. Woot! Great community, go Gunners!

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Stuart Robson @sturobson.com · 27/03/2025

we're at zero. - ~80 tabs gone through - 13 links added to the hopper. - lots of your time saved. buymeacoffee.com/sturobson

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Oh my goodness: have we entered the Post FAB era of UI design?

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

It’s this kinda clutter that erodes faith in AI and brands. 🤬🤡 Google, c’mon, I don’t need these for email, and an anchored very-oft used Archive interaction is now demoted and muddled as a tap target.

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

What's the maximum value you've ever seen to fully round a corner radius? I just encountered 40,000. That's not messing a"round"!!!!

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Reflecting on the state of Arsenal after listening to @arseblog.com Arsecast: If someone had said “Lose Ode for a couple months, and before his return begins to boil lose Saka for longer. Surprised if you *only* have 40 in 20 and leave cups unexpectedly early?” No. We are so blessed to have both.

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Snow thunderstorms with whiteout conditions of dippin dot textured snow are cool.

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Reposted by Nathan A Curtis

Stuart Robson @sturobson.com · 22/12/2024

I don’t have a SoundCloud, but… I’m looking for exciting new client projects for 2025! Whether it’s: - Design Systems - Design Tokens - Front-End Development - Consultancy I can help you and your team build scalable, efficient systems tailored to your needs. Let’s chat: alwaystwisted.com 🙏🖤

alwaystwisted.com

Always Twisted - Design Systems & Front-End Consultant

Hi, I’m Stu Robson, a Design Systems consultant and front-end developer helping teams create scalable, accessible systems that enhance collaboration.

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

After months of conversion, and a realization that copying from Design to Slides is easy in Figma, I'm abandoning (for now) the clunky Slides editor experience and returning to the Design editor for all but the last step of preparing a presentation.

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Pedant alert: Should we be using the term "primitive" to refer to a value of an attribute/style/property of an object, such as a "color primitive?" I've always understood "primitive" to be a term to describe an object (like a shape, glyph or text string, not attributes of that object.

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

Extending my Specs Figma plugin to add Dev Mode-based annotations is straightforward, but not optimal: 1. You must run *second* in Dev Mode. 2. Only some attributes are supported (extras could be added to a label) 3. Dev Mode feels tedious and inhibits comparison. Has me wondering: is it worth it?

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

I'm having one of those 🤔 moments as I encounter new entrants wrongly framing design system's emergence as within the past few years. Like, Dell.com used ecommerce component libraries with atoms and molecules in the 1990s. Cisco, Yahoo, Sun, and eBay all had heavy library investments in the 2000s.

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

What's your favorite design system history date? Two of my most oft cited are: Design Tokens written about by Salesforce, 2014 Google Material docs site visible by public, Fall 2014

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Sil Bormüller @silbormueller.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

Proud to be hosting the Design Systems Planning and Process workshop with @nathanacurtis.bsky.social for a third time!🥳 We've sold out all previous rounds Learn how to plan, scope & manage processes like a Design System lead! 🗓️ January 27+ 28 2025 Online Link in comments 👇

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Measuring design system success as objectives of a DS team, their users, and THEIR customers questions, examples and methods you can use to see how you're doing.

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

Yeah, OK, maybe I will. My specs plugin is pretty much shovel-ready to integrate this easily so that (a) you don't have to otherwise build your own plugin to do it and (b) it's already intelligent enough to only annotate and *difference* the attributes that matter.

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

The Sorry State of States: Today’s Figma assets show design could align better with code medium.com/p/89dd4668737e

medium.com

The Sorry State of States

Today’s Figma assets show design could align better with code

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Nathan A Curtis @nathanacurtis.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

The Sorry State of States: Today’s Figma assets show design could align better with code medium.com/@nathanacurt...

medium.com

The Sorry State of States

Today’s Figma assets show design could align better with code

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