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“A design system is the documentation around styles, libraries of UI components, and other rules in design. It is provided by an individual, a team, or an organization as code or design tools to be used in a more efficient and integrated manner. “
Nathan Curtis – Defining Design Systems – EightShapes
Each of us has a different definition, but here is a quote from Nathan Curtis’ article that sums up design systems in great detail.
Conceptually, a “system” is “a whole made up of parts that work together.
Kit consisting of reusable and interconnected parts
Products that are individually cohesive and interconnected
A group of people who can work together and collaborate with each other
Differences between design systems and traditional style guides
Unlike style guides and UI libraries that developers are familiar with, design systems are viewed as “products” that provide ongoing support for product optimization.
The design system itself is viewed as a product rather than a “project” for organizing design resources.
Una Kravets, who wrote Why Design Systems Fail, defines a design system as an individual combination of or including all of the following
Beginning of Design System
Background of the need for the design system
“When technology matures, design will occupy the most important position. This is because the technology itself will already be commoditized.”
John Maeda – Desing in Tech Report
In recent product development, the diversification of customer touch points mainly due to the spread of mobile devices and the technological commoditization of IT services have made the need for a superior user experience for users as a whole service more important than ever.
Against this backdrop, the role of designers is no longer limited to product styling, but is now being called upon to comprehensively understand and design the entire user experience itself. In addition to satisfying the increasingly sophisticated needs of users, designers are also required to deliver products to the market faster than ever before.
System Design and Design in Digital Products
Although the names are similar and can be confusing, the concept of “System Design” has existed in the context of systems engineering. In the context of design, attempts to standardize and organize design have existed for some time.
A typical example is the NASA Graphics Standards Manual, created by designers Richard Danne and Bruce Blackburn in 1975.
Therefore, the incorporation of engineering thought into design itself is not an uncommon example in the history of design.
Design systems are characterized by the extension of the systems design and traditional design expertise described above to optimal design processes and ideologies in the development of digital products such as websites and applications.
What is the value of using design systems?
Increase product scalability
The generic design of the product allows for flexibility to accommodate improvements and growth at scale in design and development.
Improvement and stabilization of product quality
Unifying the development environment, including patternization, regularization, and code testing in UI design and code, will enable a high quality and stable user experience.
Brands that have won the trust of customers will be able to attract repeat customers, thereby stabilizing sales and reducing advertising costs.
Save time and money
By designing UI design, code, and development environments for reuse in product development, we enable efficient prototyping and improvement.
It also enables cost savings by streamlining the development work of designers and developers.
Increase collaboration within and outside the team
By clarifying guidelines for product development and automatically optimizing document management, we facilitate handover within a project and collaboration with external parties, and expand the areas of collaboration between departments.
We provided an overview of the design system, the value of its use, and the various initiatives involving the public and private sectors.
Although the term “design system” is interpreted in different ways by different people, the key elements of each are the same: to create common elements for designers and developers, and to build a system that enables the scalable and organized operation of the product.
VIEWS will continue to bring you articles on design systems, with examples from CIRCL.
