Over the past few years, web designers have found design systems to be very effective and a useful concept in web designing. It has become a popular and hot topic of discussion among the web designers. If you have come to know about it recently and are dying to join this awesome bandwagon you are welcome but you will need to know the concept and the elements to include in it.
Several businesses and companies are investing a lot of money in web design and having a design system in place will help them a lot. It is hugely beneficial to businesses and different teams that are growing. There are lots of benefits such as:
- It will help them to keep a track of everything and in the end provide a good customer experience which is vital after all.
- A design system will also help in reducing design and technical debt, one of the most significant drawbacks in web design till now.
It will also help in speeding up the design process reducing backlogs and help in building awareness and brand accountability across different teams.
Elements to include
However, without the proper inclusions nothing will be possible and all your efforts and money will be in vain. Therefore, know these different ‘must include’ elements within a design system.
Grids: These are essential components that will help in unifying and understanding the page layouts. Elements such as MailChimp addresses grids and others are very useful for the pattern section of the design system. It covers different aspects such as gutters, grid sizes, and will also mix them effectively. Grid sections however may have Responsive section which is just an extension of the grid section.
Spacing: This section is much similar to grids and is equally useful. Few design systems such as the Polaris may also go into extensive details regarding different spacing and padding between various elements such as cards. They also talk about the line-height as spacing as well.
Errors and validations: If you take a look at Gov.uk you will know that it is the exact name and requirement of one of the design sections. It will talk about how best to handle these properly as and when these occur and even will include the code snippets for your design patterns in use under such circumstances.
Coded components: These are the specific components to include in your design systems such as the CSS and React Components to name from a huge list of them. Under the React Component you will get Tags, Tabs and Avatars each having its significant usage and installation process. All these components are consistent, clear and easy to use. You can take the help of Predix to look into the large library of guides it has specifically for the developers. You will be able to know more about the CSS modules, UI components, Angular and Cue to Maps with code right next to them for its usage.
Naming conventions: Naming and syntax is very useful inclusion into the design system and you can take a deep dive into it if you take help of https://indigit.pt/. You will have a fair idea about how to maintain consistency across teams, the files and even the programs. If you have a larger team working then you may find it complicated and difficult to keep clear and consistent naming but if you have predefined conventions things will be a lot easier for you.
Iconography: You will also have to tackle with the icons and graphics in your design system. It will help you to have a quick explanation to the set expectations and to show appropriate and ready-made. In addition to that it will enable you to show 11 rules along with its do’s and don’ts. You also follow the more traditional Priceline approach to iconography as it has an extensive list of all the icons each individually displayed with its name that you can use in your branding.
Typography: If you do not define the text your design system will not be complete. There are different approaches to it, but with clearly defined typography you will be able to prevent a few weird one-off inconsistencies and instances.
Accessibility: Just as you will find in Microsoft and QuickBooks you must include an entire section on accessibility. Make sure that you make it exceptionally detailed so that it explains all the different instances as well as the necessities of appropriate accessibility. This will ensure that your products are easily usable by anyone. Mention specific things like contrast, spacing, keyboard functionality, navigation clarity and others so that you reach the goal of accessibility which is to make sure that the UX is seamless and consistent. You may also include a section on accessibility on mobile as well if you want to make your web design more responsive just like QuickBooks.
Tone and voice: You may believe it or not but visual components are not the only things to include as there are other important elements such as tone and voice to include in a design system. Tone and voice will help you define the quality and maintain consistency in communication. Often simple use of a sentence case across the branded materials will do wonders to your web design. These elements will provide more in-depth on how to converse best and write or speak in the most appropriate messaging style.
Logos and color: These are two of the most vital design aspects of every design system because often when most people think of a style guide or brand, the first thing that comes to their mind happens to bet the logo and color. If you exclude these from your design system then your web design will lose consistency across different channels.
Alignment: Designate a full section to alignment though it may seem to be an irrelevant detail. However, it is important to keep the text, form and number consistent and aligned.
To conclude, you must also include common UI elements, gestures, motion and animation in your design system to keep consistency across platforms and teams.
About the Author:
Sujain Thomas is a blogger and content writer who write many articles on SEO, Business, Web Design and Technology. She enjoys reading new thing on the internet. She spends lots of time on social media.