UI / UX design What is it and what is the importance of a design system?
Great ideas become great products, in part thanks to their innovation, design and development, that is, a whole set of different areas address their creation, which is why its planning and methodology should be as clear as possible at the time of starting this process. It is here where the need to establish a Design System arises, where its function lies in the planning and construction of a product.
What is a Design System?
A Design System is a centralized set of processes that allows the team in its construction stage to determine the patterns and practices to be used in a coherent and organized way. This document establishes elements and components that can be reused in their functionalities, streamlining the design and development processes.
It must be considered that this design system must be flexible, that is, if certain criteria need to be adjusted at any time, it can be done, as long as the work team is informed and in the same communication channel. A design system must be dynamic and evolve according to the needs of the product.
Systematizing helps us to optimize time, which can be used to innovate in other areas, be it design, communication or interaction, thus creating a more complete product and maintaining coherence within its construction. This has a positive impact on the user experience and saves time in the development and elaboration of a product.
What is Brad Frost and atomic design?
The design systems have their origin in the methodology proposed by Brad Frost in 2012, Atomic Design, used to build effective design systems focused on web and digital products. The design of a web interface is conceived as a whole, composed of smaller units, which he calls atoms, combining these components to create elements, which are the parts that make up a digital product.
Since its conception, the idea of atomic design has been fundamental for what we know today as design systems, which currently makes it a reference for the elaboration of these systems.
Examples of Design Systems
Since an introduction to design systems and their theory has been established, I will share some examples of how some companies apply them:
- Mail Chimp
- Atlassian
- AirBnB
- Android / Material Design
- Apple
The design systems ensure the user experience, since from its creation a coherence and organization of all its elements is raised, maintaining the aesthetics and behavior within their patterns; which is translated into a saving and use of time, spending less time in generating designs or individual views of a site, and taking advantage of that time in process improvements and user experience.
