In previous Articles, we discussed the importance of good user flow and wireframing. However, this could only be done faster if we present a design system that allows us to save time in building our MVP.
A design system is essential to creating different components connected throughout the project to make changes faster and easier. This is more crucial when discussing big SaaS or Apps that present multiple instances on the same page.
If you are doing different user flows, having a design system will allow you to...
- Create components and use them in different instances
- Make updates around the rest of the Screen with just one click
- Keep a brand design consistent around the project
Implementing a design system is one of the most effective ways to ensure these qualities in your product.
In this article, we will explain a design system, how to use it, how to create a design System in Figma, and what templates you can use.
What is a Design System?
A design system is a collection of reusable components, guidelines, and standards that help teams consistently design and develop products.
In short, it's a dynamic style guide connected around the project to maintain consistency. This includes UI components, accessibility standards, interaction patterns, main Screen, and brand guidelines.
This is great for multiple teams since it allows everyone to take for the library the components, styles, and even screens they want to use around the project, making collaboration smoother and more efficient.
Why having a Design System is Important?
Imagine creating a screen for a SaaS company, but for that same Screen, you need to make an Instance (let's say the same Screen but with a pop-up notification). Sounds simple.
Now imagine that there are not 1 but 20 variations, all with changes to make about color, buttons, or other component structures.
Without a design system, you would need to go one by one. What happens if there are 50, 100, or 200 screens to update?
A design system is not just for aesthetics; it is what the name represents: a system of components interconnected to make changes in all instances. With a design system, you can.
- Have Consistency Across Platforms: You keep the same components like the Menu, top bar, and sidebar the same, ensuring that buttons, icons, and interactions look and behave the same across all platforms, creating an optimized user experience.
- Faster Iteration: With pre-built components, your design and development teams don't have to reinvent the wheel for every new feature or update. This means you can iterate faster and focus more on innovation instead of building from scratch.
- Collaboration Made Easy: A design system creates a unified language for cross-functional teams. Designers, developers, and product managers can work more efficiently, reducing miscommunications and errors.
- Scalability: As your product grows, so do the number of features, platforms, and users. A design system lets you quickly scale your design, ensuring that new features and updates align with the existing brand and user experience.
Structure of a Design System
A robust design system is built on critical components that help ensure consistency, efficiency, and quality. But what design should be part of the design system? Here is a short list of what your design system must have.
- Style Guide: This defines the colors, typography, spacing, Effects, icons, and layout rules that form your product's visual identity.
- UI Components: Reusable building blocks like buttons, input fields, navigation bars, notification messages, Select buttons, etc, that follow the design principles in the style guide.
- Design Tokens: These are small, meaningful representations of the design elements (e.g., colors, spacing, typography) that can be applied across platforms.
- Interaction Patterns: Guidelines for how users interact with your product, such as hover states, animations, and transitions.
- Main Screen or pages: In the case of a SaaS platform, it is good to have the main pages (Dashboard, configuration, plans, contacts, and others) in the design system since they are repetitive pages that will be around all the other user flows.
- Documentation: When new people come to the company, the design system must have a quick manual explaining how to use it. This way, they can understand how the components interact and use it for extra pages that need to be designed.
Objectives and Goals of a Design System
The main goal of a design system is to unify the user experience across different platforms and products. By providing a consistent visual and interactive framework, you can achieve:
- Higher Design Quality: Components are vetted and tested to ensure they meet a high standard of usability and aesthetics.
- Improved User Satisfaction: A consistent interface across platforms creates a cohesive user experience, reducing confusion and frustration.
- Reduced Development Time: Developers can reuse components instead of building new ones for every project, saving time and resources.
How to Create a Design System
There are multiple design tools that you can use to make a design system; in this case, we are going with the most popular and most used tool in the industry (Figma). Creating a design system in Figma is straightforward and doesn't take too much time.
1. When you enter your design space, you will find all the properties on the Figma project on the left sidebar; there, you will find different sections.
- Local variables (to create variables such as boolean, number, and others to add functionality to your prototype) are only available in the premium version of Figma.
- Locally Style: this is where we want to go. The local style is where you set the style you will use during the project.
2. To Create a new style, you will need to click on the plus button on the side of local Style to pop up a list of options that you can set up (text, color, effect, and grid)
3. Once you select the one you want to use (in this example, let's say, color), another screen will pop up with the following features.
- Name: name of the color using
- Description: what is it for (you can be specific here and add his function like hover color or secondary color)
- Properties: Here, you can add the code color of your preference, as well as multiple colors and opacities
4. Once you have your features set up, click Create Style, and this one will appear in the color style (or in the section of the Style you are creating) in the left sidebar.
5. Create a design and use the color style in the color section (fill or stroke). To access your Figma library, click the four dots that are always a side to the plus buttons on the color features. You will see the color style you just created.
Design System templates that you can use?
Making a design system from scratch is not necessary since there are already multiple design systems that you can use for your projects and change and add components depending on the project; the complexity and size of your design system will depend on the type of project you are using (e.g., a design system for a corporate website is not the same as a design system for a SaaS or App).
The best free design systems that you can use are.
Spectrum Design System By Adobe.
Loop Design System By Devwares.
Human Interface Guidelines By Apple.
Polaris Design System By Shopify.
Summary
A design system is an investment that pays off in time saved, consistent user experience, and improved collaboration across teams. By unifying your design process, you create a better product, save time, and reduce costs in the long run.
In Entertact, the first thing that we set up is the design system since it allows us to save a bunch of time in the wireframing and prototype face; you can book a call with us if you need help in your project and set up a design system that works best for you so it can be a consistent and scalable experience for your users.
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