Help an untrained visual designer work more efficiently and use Photoshop's 'Linked Smart Object' feature

(Bear with me, I need to establish some context :D)

I'm a visual designer who primarily deals with UI/UX for a web startup. I've created a basic UI kit (as one massive .PSD) and generally design individual web pages via photoshop (e.g. Homepage, User Profile, Settings page, etc.) with assets duplicated-in from the UI kit document. Then, front-end developers (I don't write any code) are tasked with bringing the designs to life. I'm self-taught and while I try to be as organized as possible, being a one-trick pony isn't easy, so I need some help!

I recently watched this video on Photoshop's 'Linked Smart Object' feature --and it seems like it could be a magical solution for keeping all the UI I've strewn about numerous documents up-to-date as I make any adjustments within the master UI kit. However, I don't think my current layer organization scheme really lends itself to this feature. I'm not worried about retroactively linking all the old UI I've used throughout various documents, but I would like to prime my UI Kit document to utilize this feature, for the sake of any future page designs I need to do.

With that said, here's how I currently organize assets in my UI kit:

• All categories of UI are relegated to a handful of labeled smart objects (ex.http://ift.tt/1mTHcSR] )

• Each smart object contains a handful of layer groups which organize the various states, colors, sizes, etc. of a given UI element design. (ex. http://ift.tt/1mTHaKO] )

• When I need an asset for a new design, I open the UI kit .PSD, navigate to the smart object UI category, open the smart object, expand the layer group, and duplicate the layer/layer group I need into the working document. That's it.

My concerns:

• How to utilize the 'Linked Smart Objects' feature for my purposes?
• Is my existing organization scheme inefficient already, regardless of the LSO feature?
• Is is bad that I'm converting entire categories of UI elements to smart objects? I got the idea in order to reduce performance problems with the massive UI Kit document--but perhaps SO's should be used at a more granular level within the hierarchy?

Open to any manner of suggestions/advice/examples, thanks!

Epic visual tool

Epson 5030UB 2D/3D 1080p 3LCD Projector Submitted December 31, 2015 at 07:47PM by theyseemerohirrim http://ift.tt/1NUTseM