Design systems are often thought of as mostly being worth considering for larger organisations with several teams and digital touchpoints. But is this really the case?
For many companies, design systems offer unparalleled efficiency in daily operations. The contents of a design system can vary, but a common way to see it is as a library for all your design elements and components – paired with instructions on how to use them. It’s a home for not just patterns and guidelines, but for front end code and other reusable elements as well.
Designers, developers and content creators alike can use the contents of a design system like Lego bricks, which has many benefits. To name a few: the amount of work is reduced when similar things are not repeatedly built from scratch. The brand, user experience and accessibility standards remain consistent across all channels, even with multiple teams and contributors.
The examples we often see of design systems are from some the biggest companies in the world. Think Apple, Google, Uber and IBM. This can make it difficult to see that the scale of a design system can also be much smaller. In fact, we’re here to tell you that design systems – or at the very least organising your work according to the same principles – can immensely benefit almost any organisation.
Let’s dive deeper into why a design system is most likely a fantastic investment for your team.
The idea that design systems are tools only valuable for bigger organisations could not be further from the truth. In fact, we propose that almost any company that has several people working on a digital touchpoint (website, app etc.) should at least utilise the basic design system principles. Other indicators include:
At its core, a design system is meant to make daily work more efficient. Whenever the team wants to create anything from a new web page to a flyer to an entirely new digital product, the design system provides them with the reusable components they need to make it happen both quickly and in accordance with the brand and quality requirements. The benefits of this approach stack up quickly, making the investment more than worth it for organisations of essentially all sizes.
Importantly, a design system is not meant to be a creative limitation. Building things from scratch remains an option. What matters is that for most daily tasks, using pre-existing templates is simply a no-brainer. Having your team share this approach is key when making the most out of a design system. In that sense, a design system is not just a tool, it’s a mindset. One that can potentially pivot your productivity to new heights.
The sooner you start creating culture and processes around scalable ways of working, the better. The journey towards a design system should be gradual. The best part: you will reap the benefits of many small efficiency victories along the way. For small or medium-sized companies, adapting to this way of working from the ground up is extremely useful as your design system scales together with your business.
A design system is not just a tool, it's a mindset. The sooner you start creating culture and processes around scalable ways of working, the better.
Let’s talk a bit about what the design system mindset is. A good way of seeing it is that it introduces the best software developer practices to the entire organisation.
Developers know that reusable components are essential for not only scalability, but maintaining quality and avoiding chaos in general. The same principle should apply to design. This philosophy alone will likely nudge your team towards design system adjacent thinking.
There is no universal definition for what constitutes a design system. However, an important distinction between an asset & component library and a design system is that the latter contains clear instructions on how to use the elements in different contexts. This too is familiar to coders: commenting your work in a way that anyone in the team now or in the future can utilise it is an essential part of the workflow. In an ideal situation, the design system is the glue that brings the different teams of an organisation together: used by designers, content producers and developers alike, it also creates a shared language and processes within multi-disciplinary teams.
A design system does not have to be a massive undertaking. Rather, dividing it into smaller projects that all result in small efficiency boosts is a good way to make its adoption to your work culture easier. For many companies, a small scalable component library is a good practical first goal. But even before that, mapping out the current processes and prioritising the workflows where a design system could offer the biggest benefits not only helps you build a solid strategy, but also gets you closer to picking up those tasty, low-hanging productivity fruits at an early stage.
One thing we cannot stress enough: make sure you involve the people in your organisation who will be using the design system from the get-go. They can pinpoint where the biggest pain points lie — and are your best source of feedback throughout the process.
The best time to invest was yesterday, the second-best time is now.
This classic saying very much applies to design systems as well. The efficiency boosts you get from a design system and the ways of working it creates accumulate over time, meaning the faster you get started the better. Many companies wonder whether they are big enough to warrant a design system. We would argue that the earlier you build your culture around this style of working, the more saved time you’ll have at your disposal to spend on tasks that will give you a competitive edge.
Curious to read more about design systems and seeing examples of ones we’ve helped create? Head on over to our design systems guide.
Are you interested in building a design system of seeking consultation on the topic? Drop us a line and let our professionals help you further!
