#DESIGN SYSTEM DESIGNER MANUAL#The 1976 NASA Graphics Standards Manual (NHB 1430.2) is an example of a thorough branding style guide. These guidelines are sometimes incorporated into the component library as well, to provide relevant guidance in context. The most-common style guides tend to focus on branding (colors, typography, trademarks, logos, and print media), but style guides also offer guidance on content (such as tone of voice and language recommendations) and visual- and interaction-design standards (also known as front-end style guides). Style guides contain specific implementation guidelines, visual references, and design principles for creating interfaces or other design deliverables. There are two important parts to a design system:ĭesign repositories can take many forms, but they often contain a style guide, a component library, and a pattern library. Whether true or not, this perception may signal a lack of unified strategy across projects and a missed opportunity to increase efficiency. There may be a perception that projects are static, one-off creations, which generally don’t require reusable components.Any design system, even if it were adapted from an existing one, needs instructions for use - otherwise there is a risk that it may be applied inconsistently or incorrectly across screens or across teams. #DESIGN SYSTEM DESIGNER HOW TO#It takes time to teach others how to use the design system.At their best, they are constantly evolving as teams gather feedback from those who use them. Design systems, unfortunately, are not a one-and-done solution. Creating and maintaining a design system is a time-intensive activity which requires a dedicated team.There are some potential hurdles and limitations which may prevent a design team from using a design system: It can serve as an educational tool and reference for junior-level designers and content contributors.Įxplicitly written usage guidelines and style guides help onboard individual contributors who are new to UI design or content creation and also serve as a reminder for the rest of the contributors.As an added bonus, any major visual rebrands or redesigns can be managed at scale through the design system. Design systems provide a single source of components, patterns, and styles and unify disjointed experiences so that they are visually cohesive and appear to be part of the same ecosystem. Particularly when teams work in silos, where each product or channel operates independently of the others, the absence of an organization-wide design system can lead to inconsistent visual appearance and experiences that seem fragmented or unrelated to the brand. It creates visual consistency across products, channels, and (potentially siloed) departments.For example, the functionality or appearance of a dropdown menu would not be debated, since that term is reserved for a specifically defined element within the design system. It creates a unified language within and between crossfunctional teams.Įspecially when design responsibilities shift or when teams become geographically dispersed, a unified language reduces wasted design or development time around miscommunications.While this payoff might seem small when you create only a small number of screens, it becomes substantial when you must coordinate efforts across dozens of teams and thousands of screens. Since simpler UI elements are created already and reusable, design resources can focus less on tweaking visual appearance and more on more-complex problems (like information prioritization, workflow optimization, and journey management). It alleviates strain on design resources to focus on larger, more complex problems.Teams can continue to use the same elements over and over, reducing the need to reinvent the wheel and thus risking unintended inconsistency. The primary benefit of design systems is their ability to replicate designs quickly by utilizing premade UI components and elements. Design (and development) work can be created and replicated quickly and at scale.Why Use a Design System?ĭesign systems, when implemented well, can provide a lot of benefits to a design team: So, many design teams leverage robust design systems to manage designs at scale.ĭefinition: A design system is a complete set of standards intended to manage design at scale using reusable components and patterns. With this drastic expansion comes a dire need for organizations to streamline design work. Not only are there millions of applications and billions of websites (with more created each year), but each of those apps and websites might have hundreds or thousands of pages (or screens). As UI design has evolved over the years, the scale and speed at which UI screens must be created has also increased.
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