As a collection of standards and guidelines, Design System now play a important role in developing digital products in the modern era.
Each component provides comprehensive guidelines for various visual elements, aiding teams in creating consistent and efficient designs. This Design System ensures that every part of an application or website has a harmonious look and function.
In this article, we'll discuss what a design system is and its key components. Read on to enhance your business's visual and functional consistency in the digital age!
Understanding What "Design System" Is
From its term, a "Design System" is a set of standards and guidelines used to manage design across various digital products to maintain a consistent look and feel.
This includes elements such as UI & UX components, design patterns, visual principles, and consistent documentation that the team researched based on brand identity and user experience.
Like an SOP in graphic design, the main goal of a design system is to create uniformity and efficiency in the design and development process, allowing teams to work faster and more organized.
Moreover, a design system helps maintain visual and functional consistency as part of branding efforts across platforms, enhancing user experience, and simplifying product maintenance.
Within a design system, each component is designed to be reusable and modifiable as needed, saving time and effort in creating a uniform interface. This allows design and development teams to collaborate more easily and ensures that every design element meets the set quality standards.
Benefits of the Design System for Businesses
The concept of a product design system offers significant benefits for businesses, particularly in creating efficient and consistent digital products. By implementing this concept, products can achieve high standards, contributing to business success.
Here are 3 main benefits of the design system you need to know:
1. Product Design Consistency
The design system concept ensures all design elements in digital products have visual uniformity and harmony. With clear guidelines, every design and development team can follow the same standards, reducing errors and misalignment.
This design consistency enhances the user experience as they will feel more familiar and comfortable with a uniform interface. Additionally, consistent design helps build a strong and professional brand identity, increasing customer trust and loyalty.
2. Product Scalability
Beyond consistency, a design system also helps digital products grow more easily and quickly. With reusable components, development teams don't have to start from scratch each time there's an update or new feature.
This saves time and resources, allowing businesses to respond to market changes and user needs more efficiently.
Product scalability also means various teams can work in parallel with the same guidelines, speeding up the development process to product launch.
3. Ease of Accessibility
Design system improves accessibility, particularly in digital products. By following set guidelines, businesses can ensure every design element meets necessary accessibility standards.
Ease of accessibility enhances the overall user experience, making products more inclusive and user-friendly. Additionally, maintaining good accessibility builds a positive reputation, increases user engagement, and reaches a broader target audience.
Key Components of a Design System
A design system consists of various essential components that form the foundation for creating consistent and efficient digital products.
Each component plays a unique role in ensuring optimal quality standards and user experience. Here are some key components of a design system:
1. Visual Style
The visual style encompasses all aesthetic elements that define the look and feel of a digital product. These aesthetic elements include color palettes, typography, iconography, and other graphic elements used to create a consistent visual identity.
With clear visual style guidelines, designers can ensure uniformity and coherence in all components and pages. This strengthens brand identity and makes it easier for users to recognize and interact with the product.
2. UI & UX Components
User Interface (UI) design components are reusable interface elements such as buttons, forms, cards, and menus. Each component is designed using standards based on user experience (UX) research to ensure the product's consistent appearance and functionality.
With a comprehensive library of UI & UX components, development teams can quickly build and update features without creating designs from scratch each time. This increases efficiency and speeds up the development process.
3. Design Patterns
Lastly, design patterns are standard solutions for common problems in user interface design. These patterns include page layouts, navigation, and interactions that have proven effective and intuitive for users.
By using design patterns, designers can help reduce user's cognitive load and improve the overall experience by providing familiar structures and functions.
How to Build a Design System Guidelines
Building an effective design system requires planning and structured steps. Here is a guide that can help in building a comprehensive and consistent product design system:
- Step 1: User Interface & Experience Audit
This stage thoroughly examines all design elements and components used in digital products. The goal is to identify inconsistencies and gaps in the design so the team can understand which elements need improvement or elimination. - Step 2: Organize Design Components
After the audit, try to organize design components by grouping similar elements. This aims to create a library of components that are easy for the team to access and use. - Step 3: Create Visual Foundations
Visual foundations include guidelines for aesthetic elements such as color palettes, typography, iconography, and other graphic styles. By creating clear visual foundations, all design elements will look harmonious, consistent, and professional. - Step 4: Create the System Documentation
Documentation is the most crucial part of building a design system, as it provides clear and detailed guidelines for using every design element and component within the system. This documentation can include descriptions, usage examples, and source code for each component. - Step 5: Compile Guidelines
Lastly, guidelines should be compiled covering rules and best practices for designing and developing digital products. With clear guidelines, the team can ensure that every product developed meets the set standards.
These are 5 simple steps to build a design system for business product development.
However, in practice, SALT also develops additional detailed and technical steps to build a more perfect business design system.
SALT's version of the design system includes points such as Digital Asset Management, Technical Instructions, and Design System Versions to be built (like Token-based Design, Scale-based Design, Platform-based Design, and more).
Example of Design System Implementation
You must know the company Pegadaian or PT Pegadaian (Persero). This state-owned enterprise (BUMN) in the financial sector is a successful example of implementing a Design System into its digital platform.
Assisted by SALT as the Technology Enabler in a design system project, Pegadaian successfully built a design system that can be implemented to develop any platform it owns.
This design system harmoniously maintains Pegadaian's brand consistency through various visual elements and components, such as the use of green color variations, typography choices, button and card shapes, utilization of white space, and more.
This alignment is not only on the Pegadaian Website, but also on other Pegadaian platforms, such as the Pegadaian Digital or Pegadaian Syariah Digital apps.
Questions about the Design System
a. What is the Design System?
A design system is a collection of standards, guidelines, and tools used to manage design across various products, especially digital products. It includes UI & UX components, visual styles, and consistent design patterns. The goal is to create uniformity and efficiency in the design and development process.
b. What Are the Elements in a Design System?
Elements in a design system include various key components. These components include visual styles like color palettes and typography, reusable user interface design components like buttons and forms, and design patterns for layout and navigation.
c. What are the Steps to Build a Design System?
Here are simple steps to build a design system:
- First, conduct a user interface audit to identify inconsistencies.
- Second, organize existing design components.
- Third, create visual foundations that include guidelines for aesthetic elements.
- Fourth, create clear and detailed documentation for each element and component.
- Fifth, compile guidelines covering rules and best practices for design and development.
Key Takeaways
That was a discussion on the role of the Design System in building a business product, especially digital products such as websites, apps, software, and more.
This system ensures that your team can work harmoniously and organize by providing clear guidelines for various product design elements.
Any updates or feature additions can be made faster without repeating the process from the beginning. This supports your business's scalable growth and allows you to adapt to market changes and user needs.
As a Technology Developer & System Integrator, SALT can be your strategic partner in realizing technology with the best Design System relevant to your business goals.
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