Over the last few years, the scale and speed of designing an interface have significantly increased. There are millions of web and mobile applications, and those millions of websites or apps might have hundreds and thousands of screens. We need design systems to manage design at scale and streamline the process.
In this article, I want to start a dialogue around design systems. As companies worldwide continue to invest in digital transformations, they are finding that they need to shorten the time it takes to build new products. A Design System is one such resource that helps you do this efficiently across multiple touchpoints. So without any further delay, let’s quickly dive into it.
While researching for this article, I was looking for an exact and straightforward definition, but there are only some vague concepts floating around the internet. It seems to vary based on who you ask.
Down below are two definitions I think are most appropriate:
“The complete set of design standards, documentation, and principles along with the toolkit(UI patterns and code components) to achieve those standards.” (source: uxpin.com)
“Design systems are essentially collections of rules constraints in principles implemented in the design and code. These three attributes serve distinct functions and provide a coherent system at systemic order in systems for buttons to single-page applications.” (source: medium.muz.li)
In summary, a design system is a set of standards to manage design at scale by reducing redundancy and maintaining consistency.