The importance of “Design System”

Hello everyone!

In this blog, I will describe the design system. because some of us are confused with patterns, libraries, and design systems. We may believe that everything is different. However, every component, element, and pattern is classified as a part of the design system. Here, we can talk about the design system as well as common design systems that are now being used by designers in the design sector.

What is a Design System?

A design system is a set of standards to which designers must adhere in order to manage design components and reduce redundancy. It is developing a visual language and ensuring product consistency.

Design systems are essential for organisations that want to organise their design assets and keep producing dependable, usable designs. Having everything in one organised place is important because it allows others within the organisation to look at it and better understand how and why design decisions have to be made, which is essential for the designers at a company and for the rest of the organisation as well.

Why use a Design System?

The main advantage of design systems is fast replication of designs through the use of predefined UI elements and components. Teams can reuse the same components repeatedly to avoid having to create something new and facing the possibility of unwanted repetition.

Effectiveness: Design systems allow designers and developers to reuse components, increasing efficiency over creating equivalent components from scratch on a regular basis.

Uniformity: Design systems create a standard set of concepts and guidelines for building components. Consistent experiences across several platforms become much easier to design.

Before we get into the design system, we should first understand the distinction between pattern libraries, component libraries, design systems, and style guides.

Component Library vs. Pattern Library

Component library: A component is a reusable item that can be used in a number of different user interface patterns. A component library is a collection of user interface components contained within a design system.

Pattern Library: A pattern is a collection of components used by designers to address usability problems, such as a filter, search, forms, etc. The pattern library is a collection of UI patterns within a design system.

For further clarification, we should know about Brad Frost’s Atomic design.

Brad Frost’s Atomic design

Design System vs. Component Library

Component libraries include extensive standards and documentation, but they are not design systems. Both designers and developers can utilise these component libraries.

The design system is unique. Designers and developers require the components for building blocks. To create user interfaces that are visually consistent, designers should follow the system’s rules, style guide, principles, and other documents. The governance processes of the design system must be followed by team members who want to modify a component or add a new pattern.

What is a Style Guide?

A style guide is a document that gives context and instructions for the patterns and components of a design system, such as colour codes, font scales, usage, dos and don’ts, and so on. In order to maintain consistency across the product’s design, a style guide is a useful tool that provides all the information.

How to create a Design System?

Let’s have a look at how to make a design system.

A design system can be applied in one of three ways:

1. Embracing an existing design system
2. Modifying an existing design system
3. Making a unique or custom design system

Designers must complete the following processes in order to create a design system:

1. User Interface Audit

List each design pattern that is currently applied to an interface, describe it, and then make note of any inconsistencies.

2. Create a colour palette

Colors have an effect on every aspect of the design system. So, create a colour scheme in its ultimate form first. Choose your primary colours, your naming style, and the method for creating accent colors.

3. Create a typographic scale for the design system.

In visual design, colour and typography go hand in hand. Select the typefaces and typographic scales that will be used to provide a consistent information architecture across all products. Typographic scale has an impact on the user interface.

4. Execute the icon library and other styles.

The use of icons in user interface design can help overcome linguistic problems. A view icon highlighted with an “eye” icon, which reinforces the intended action, is one example of how they might affect user behavior.

5. Guidelines and rules

A true design system cannot exist without precise instructions on when and how to use design elements. Make sure to document shared guidelines for how teams can use and manage it effectively. Teams can instantly work more efficiently and quickly with the help of clear instructions and guidelines.

6. Establish the First Design System Pattern

The process of creating design system patterns is iterative. Not all of the patterns need to be built at once. Choose the ideal architecture for the pattern library first, then design each pattern individually.

I’ve included a list of the most commonly used design systems in the industry.

Google — Material Design System

Apple — Human Interface Guidelines

Microsoft — Fluent Design System

IBM — Carbon Design System

Salesforce — Lightning Design System

Atlassian — Atlassian Design System

Mailchimp — Mailchimp Design System

Shopify — Polaris Design System

Uber — Uber Design System

I have described the design system to the best of my knowledge. I believe you will better grasp the design system after reading this.