Build a perfect design system

Nick Babich shares key principles that will help you build a perfect design system for your organisation

- NICK BABICH

Design systems help large industry players to standardise the design process and make it more predictable. A lot of companies try to take on the initiative of building their own design system. But quite often, despite everyone’s best intentions, all the effort that a product team puts into making a thoughtful design system can go straight down the drain.

Over the course of this article, I will define what a design system is, what to consider before building a design system and how best to introduce a design system in your organisation.

What exactly is a design system?

The name ‘design system’ can create a false impression of something that provides value only for designers. But in reality a design system isn’t something that just concerns designers; instead it’s about how an entire organisation builds its products.

Successful design processes usually depend on there being a tight crossfunctional collaboration between all teams involved in the creation of the product. And a design system is about building a shared language that empowers teams to collaborate more effectively. It’s a complete set of design principles, rules and standards along with the toolkit (design patterns, visual styles and a code library of reusable UI components) required to achieve those principles, rules and standards. A design system enables a product team to create a product faster – without having to sacrifice any quality – by making the design reusable.

Design system commonalities

The ultimate purpose of going to the trouble of implementing a design system is to help the business learn and grow. That’s why a design system should always be based on the objectives of a business. For the very same reason, not all design systems are built the same but nevertheless, most design systems share a few common elements: