Design Process
min read
May 9, 2024
April 26, 2022

Design Systems — Building with Systems, Purpose and Principles

Design Systems — Building with Systems, Purpose and Principles
Table of contents

Design systems simplify human connections, scale & evolve digitally through systems.

Design systems are designed to simplify human connections systematically while evolving the legacy of user experience and growth for global technology brands. They are built with an inclusive approach to place future human needs at the centre of every effort.

They can be defined as a collection of pre-built, reusable assets — components, patterns, guidance, and code — that allow their users to build consistent digital experiences efficiently.

Systems

Value systems, as they are about tackling design problems in association.

Systems are about considering and creating versatile solutions that can be used repeatedly and consistently throughout a product. They help to avoid creating a different way to solve the same or similar problem every time you come across it.

Design systems are the result of a systematic approach to design. The components are built, deployed, maintained, and scaled. They are a harmonious package of design, code, guidelines, and documentation that is used to build consistent, on-brand, and efficient web products.

Colors system of a design system

Purpose

Inviolable design systems hold a clear set of purposes behind them. 

Technology needs to evolve, to regenerate, through a circular system that encourages coherency, long-term use of products, and a systematic workflow to survive with uncertainties. Design systems can shape the future of digital products, they open up new interdisciplinary ways of collaborating and creating.

Here are ten other reasons that demand the need for a design system.

  • Human Connection: digital platforms that nurture human connections should be designed with empathetic, inclusive use cases at their heart. Design systems' interdisciplinary ways of collaborating and creating, foster that from the very beginning of the design process.
  • Inclusive design: They back up accessible design guidelines, inclusive design, and redesign approach choices. These are essential for designers, developers, governance, businesses, and users.
  • Flexible patterns: Design systems come with adaptive and shape-shifting components and patterns with firm guidelines and principles. These are designed to fit increasingly flexible, dynamic ways of the digital experience.
  • Centralized resources: The centralized resources and design components become increasingly reclaimable, serially reusable, and regenerative. They can be reoriented to make alterations, create new variations, and innovate at scale.
  • Circular growth: Design systems broadly focus on users and the relationships between components and systems over and over through the cyclical web design and development process. This helps for systematic growth and consistent progress.
Colors system of a design system
  • Creative freedom: Design systems leave space and time for focusing on user research, problem-solving approaches, iterative feedback, and open communications about user experience as opposed to debating padding, colours, and type choices.
  • Business wellness: They push teams to work together in the same direction enabling them to rapidly prototype and experiment with ideas in high fidelity — ultimately saving time and money.
  • Empathetic advances: The true value of digital products resides in valuing people over profits. The time spared for focusing on research often leads to personas. Personas enable a clear vision of the people’s needs and solutions that businesses should take to succeed.
  • Efficient strategy: Design systems streamline the design and development process efficiently by decreasing the amount of time it takes to design, build, and ship new websites, products, and features.
  • Consistent Evolution: Design systems help to find a way to effectively create and openly communicate — commonly shared design guidelines. This helps everyone to work in the same direction. Consistent evolution is important because working individually leads to reinventing the wheel, bloating the code, and damaging the brand, product, user experience, and mostly falling out in the process.
Example of QED42 design system

Principles

Design system principles are its foundation and simply a way of guiding its usage.

The principles of a design system can enable to stand out technology and design to elevate the lives of people and brands. These principles have the power to adapt and evolve, they establish the foundation for the creative processes. They help to effectively present the brand under the same design language.

The principles of a design system help teams with management and quick decision-making. These few simple principles guide the team toward rational solutions without much discussion.

Everyone who uses the design system should be aligned with its guiding principles. Teams work better when they are aligned with a common vision, set of standards, and a way of moving forward.

Building with systems, purpose, and principles makes sure that the design systems can be used by everyone. They play a fundamental role in crafting alternative end-to-end user experiences that are sustainable, inclusive, human-centered, consistent, yet functional and applicable.


Reminder — Take a Coffee Break or just have some water maybe, Happy crafting!

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