: Pros & Cons of Pattern Lab - mixing developer & designer roles I've been looking into patternlab.io as a possible design tool we could use over Sketch. Everything I've read about it seems to

I've been looking into patternlab.io as a possible design tool we could use over Sketch.

Everything I've read about it seems to be only positive. And it does seem very good, I like it's atomic approach to creating designs.

As a frontend developer I would find it more realistic to work with designs from Pattern Lab rather than Sketch, PS, Zeplin etc. It provides a truer representation of the actual web app than a static PSD with one or two breakpoints ever could.

But to be honest, I can't see how it could fit into our agency (or most others) as it requires designers to code, possibly learn JavaScript. In my experience, there is not a full crossover of skills between Frontend Devs and Web/UX Designers, they may share some of the each others skills but are usually much better in the area they focus on, design or development. So to use pattern lab you would need to pair designer/coder to work on together, which will take much longer (a con?).

Also, on the development side. Surely there is additional work when integrating your pattern lab css/mark-up with whichever framework you are using. Your backend system may also provide issues you had not foreseen in the design phase.

So in theory I think Pattern Lab sounds great, if your project has time & budget to allow for it.

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