Design System 101 – Everything you Need to Know About Building a Design System for Your Product
Design systems are often confused with style guides, but they do more than just provide an overview of your company’s brand standards and tone. Design systems define the components that make up your product’s interface, and they help you implement the right design approach at the right time throughout your product development process.
In this article, we’ll dive into what design systems are, what they can do for you, and how to start building one for your own product or service.
Introduction to Product Design System.
Building a world-class design system is no easy task. It requires an understanding of the needs and limitations of the people who will be using it, as well as deep knowledge of the processes and tools needed to implement it correctly.
For these reasons, most companies start with something smaller. They might build their own style guide or pattern library (a place to store all the reusable components that make up their interface). Or they might start by rolling out one component at a time.
One good example of this approach is Uber’s redesign effort in 2017 which started with Hello and went on to include buttons, forms, screens, etcetera.
Building a design system.
A design system is a set of standards, components, and best practices that help make the process of designing and building products more consistent, efficient, and scalable. A design system includes things like typography, color palettes, patterns or elements (like navigation), symbols (like error messages), and anything else that helps designers work together. Design systems can be used across different mediums like digital interfaces and physical products.
#*An example of how this might work is in an interface where we might have one pattern for showing errors with an exclamation point icon at the top right corner of the screen, then have another pattern for showing errors with a question mark icon at the bottom left corner. Having these two patterns means when a designer is working on a project they don’t have to worry about which way to put the symbol because they’re always in the same place. The only difference will be what shape it takes (exclamation point or question mark).
#*A design system also makes it easier for someone who doesn’t speak the language of whatever company they are working with on their project. It also makes it easier for designers who are coming onto projects because they will understand what kind of style guide they should be using, what fonts are available, and so on.
Also Read: Top 10 Fonts That Every Designer Should Have in Their Toolkit (Download Links)
Benefits of using a design system for your products
Follow a design systems methodology, and the benefits are endless. A well-defined system will help drive consistency across all aspects of the user experience, including interface design, copywriting, and visual styling. Best of all? It’ll save you time in the long run by preventing features from looking out-of-place next to one another.
Related: Why You Should Consider a Career in Product or Graphic Design
Workflows and tools
A design system is a set of guidelines, components and code that will help create beautiful, consistent products. The goal is to reduce the time it takes to build new features and maintain existing ones. Plus, you’ll be able to scale with changes in the company by maintaining the same brand experience across all platforms.
Here are some tools and workflows that will help you on your journey:
- Sketch App
- Figma
- Photoshop or Illustrator App
- Style Guide Framework
- Styleguide Generator
- LESS CSS Framework (Bootstrap)
- CSS Autoprefixer
- Git Repository
Resources
-What is a Design System?
-Why do I need one?
-How do I build one?
-Where can I find resources on designing and managing the process of building a design system?
-Design systems are so important because they provide an architecture for designers, developers, and stakeholders. They save time by making it easier to maintain visual consistency across all screens, develop products more efficiently by leveraging past work, and foster collaboration among cross-functional teams.
-The most popular guidebook for creating a design system is A Pattern Language. It was created in 1977 by Christopher Alexander et al., but its core principles still apply today. These guidelines also outline what makes up a successful design system as well as provide examples of how it can be applied in practice.
Recommended: What’s the Difference Between UI and UX Design?
Conclusion.
A design system is the backbone of any product. It provides consistency across all features, and it can be used as a tool to create new features quickly. The more complex the product becomes, the more important it is that your team has an understanding of how to implement and use this crucial framework.
Lessons learned (1-2 sentences): Design systems have been extremely beneficial to our process at JiffyPay Limited, reducing the time it takes to build new features and maintain existing ones. We hope this post has given you a brief overview of what they are, why they’re important, as well as tools and workflows that can help you get started!
