Why Your Product Needs a Design System

It’s common for software to grow in complexity long before design becomes a strategic priority. Implementing a design system early is ideal, as it helps protect your product’s long-term quality by minimizing rework, maintaining consistency, and providing clear guidance as new features are added. It also leads to improved conversions, reduced support tickets, and a more positive and memorable interaction with your brand.

Beyond the initial design or the design system, having a dedicated design system manager (often the designer but not necessarily) on staff to maintain and evolve the system over time is essential, as it ensures your design system remains a living resource that continues to support your team and improve your products. The design system manager can work collaboratively with your team to strategically refine and unify your product’s visual design, integrating design more thoughtfully into the software development process. The outcome is a cohesive and well-documented design system that not only provides developers with a clear foundation to build from, (eliminating the need to start from scratch each time), but also streamlines development and enhances user experience by ensuring a consistent, modern interface across your products.

Here’s what you can expect your design partner will do if you engage one to build a design system for your product:

• Conduct a comprehensive audit of all interface components, styles, and screens within your products
• to identify strengths, inconsistencies, and opportunities for improvement. I’d collect feedback from your
• team members to identify existing pain points.
• Create an interim baseline design system by consolidating the best existing components, and
• providing a consistent foundation for the team to work from.
• Build an improved cohesive design system that is informed by internal and external client feedback,
• that is on brand, and that meets the needs of your products and company. Typically an atomic approach.
• Create clear and accessible documentation so your team understands how to use the design system.
• The documentation should be robust, with naming conventions (and tokenization) that meets your needs.
• Regular audits of the software to identify inconsistencies, and areas for improvement.
• Ongoing maintenance of the design system, including new features and updates, and expansion of the
• documentation to fill any gaps.

Once you have a design system in place, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without one. If your organization is in need of a design system, get in touch.