As application development becomes increasingly dynamic and complex, it's a challenge to deliver accessible and usable products with consistent style. This is particularly true in larger organizations with multiple teams working on different products. Design systems define a collection of design patterns, component libraries and good design and engineering practices that ensure consistent digital products. Evolved from the corporate style guides of the past, design systems offer shared libraries and documents that are easy to find and use. Generally, guidance is written down as code and kept under version control so that the guide is less ambiguous and easier to maintain than simple documents. Design systems have become a standard approach when working across teams and disciplines in product development because they allow teams to focus. They can address strategic challenges around the product itself without reinventing the wheel every time a new visual component is needed.
Our experiences show that teams seldom apply a product-centric mindset when building design systems. The primary consumers of the shared libraries and documents are the product development teams. When applying a product mindset, system owners should establish empathy with internal consumers (the development teams) and collaborate with them. We've found that the reason many component libraries are maligned is because the owning team wasn't able to give consumers what they needed fast enough and wasn't set up to take outside contributions. A product-centric mindset also requires organizations to think about if and how contributions should be made to the design system and how these contributions should be governed — on this topic, we recommend applying the design system decision records technique. For us, running a good design system or component library requires social work as much as technical work.
As application development becomes increasingly dynamic and complex, it's a challenge to deliver accessible and usable products with consistent style. This is particularly true in larger organizations with multiple teams working on different products. Design systems define a collection of design patterns, component libraries and good design and engineering practices that ensure consistent digital products. Built on the corporate style guides of the past, design systems offer shared libraries and documents that are easy to find and use. Generally, guidance is written down as code and kept under version control so that the guide is less ambiguous and easier to maintain than simple documents. Design systems have become a standard approach when working across teams and disciplines in product development because they allow teams to focus. They can address strategic challenges around the product itself without reinventing the wheel every time a new visual component is needed.
As application development becomes increasingly dynamic and complex, it's a challenge to achieve the effective delivery of accessible and usable products that are consistent in style. Design systems define a collection of design patterns, component libraries and good design and engineering practices that ensure consistency in the development of digital products. We've found design systems a useful addition to our toolbox when working across teams and disciplines in product development, because they allow teams to focus on more strategic challenges around the product itself without the need to reinvent the wheel every time they need to add a visual component. The types of components and tools you use to create design systems can vary greatly.
