Glossary

15.4 Scaling Design Systems Across Products

4 min read•august 9, 2024

Design systems are the backbone of consistent, scalable product design. They're like a shared language that helps teams create cohesive experiences across different products and platforms. But making them work for everyone isn't always easy.

Scaling design systems across products is all about balance. You need to keep things consistent while allowing for customization. It's a juggling act between standardization and flexibility, ensuring your system can grow and adapt as your products evolve.

Design System Adoption and Evolution

Implementing and Measuring Design Systems

Top images from around the web for Implementing and Measuring Design Systems

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Top images from around the web for Implementing and Measuring Design Systems

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  • Design system adoption involves strategic rollout across teams and products
  • Requires buy-in from stakeholders, including designers, developers, and product managers
  • Gradual implementation often starts with pilot projects before full-scale deployment
  • Design system evolution necessitates continuous updates to reflect changing product needs and design trends
  • Regular audits and feedback loops ensure the system remains relevant and effective
  • Design system metrics measure success and impact on product development
    • Quantitative metrics include time saved in design and development, across products, and reduction in design debt
    • Qualitative metrics assess user satisfaction, team collaboration, and overall product quality
  • Design ops streamline design processes and workflows
    • Involves creating standardized tools, templates, and documentation
    • Facilitates smoother collaboration between design and development teams

Strategies for Successful Adoption

  • Comprehensive onboarding and training programs for team members
  • Creation of detailed documentation and guidelines for system usage
  • Establishment of a dedicated design system team to manage and maintain the system
  • Regular communication and updates to keep all stakeholders informed of changes and improvements
  • Integration of the design system into existing design and development tools (, , )
  • Development of a robust governance model to manage system contributions and updates
  • Implementation of version control to track changes and manage different iterations of the system

Long-term Evolution and Maintenance

  • Continuous refinement of components and patterns based on user feedback and analytics
  • Regular performance reviews to identify areas for improvement and optimization
  • Adaptation to new technologies and design trends (, dark mode, accessibility standards)
  • Scalability considerations to accommodate growing product lines and user bases
  • Establishment of a clear deprecation process for outdated components and patterns
  • Creation of a roadmap for future enhancements and expansions of the design system
  • Regular benchmarking against industry standards and competitor design systems

Scaling Design Systems Across Brands and Platforms

Ensuring Consistency Across Platforms

  • Cross-platform consistency maintains brand identity and user experience across various devices and operating systems
  • Involves creating flexible components that adapt to different screen sizes and interaction models (touch, mouse, keyboard)
  • Utilizes responsive design principles to ensure seamless transitions between desktop, tablet, and mobile experiences
  • Implements platform-specific design patterns when necessary while maintaining overall brand coherence
  • Develops a shared design language that translates effectively across web, iOS, Android, and other platforms
  • Creates unified naming conventions and component structures to facilitate cross-platform development
  • Establishes guidelines for platform-specific interactions and gestures (swipe on mobile, hover on desktop)

Managing Multi-brand Design Systems

  • Multi-brand design systems support multiple product lines or sub-brands within a larger organization
  • Involves creating a core foundation of shared components and styles
  • Allows for brand-specific customizations through theming and variable-based design
  • Utilizes a modular architecture to enable easy swapping of brand-specific elements
  • Implements a centralized repository for shared components with brand-specific extensions
  • Develops clear guidelines for maintaining brand individuality while leveraging shared resources
  • Creates efficient workflows for managing updates across multiple brands simultaneously

Balancing Customization and Standardization

  • Customization vs. standardization requires striking a balance between brand uniqueness and operational efficiency
  • Standardization promotes consistency, reduces development time, and simplifies maintenance
  • Customization allows for brand differentiation and adaptation to specific product needs
  • Implements a tiered approach to components (core, customizable, brand-specific)
  • Utilizes and variables to enable easy customization of colors, typography, and other brand elements
  • Establishes clear processes for requesting and approving custom components or variations
  • Develops guidelines for when to create custom solutions versus adapting existing components

Organizational Models for Design System Management

  • Centralized vs. distributed models determine how design systems are managed and maintained within an organization
  • Centralized model:
    • Single team responsible for the entire design system
    • Ensures consistency and standardization across all products
    • May lead to slower response times for product-specific needs
  • Distributed model:
    • Multiple teams contribute to and maintain different parts of the design system
    • Allows for greater flexibility and faster iterations
    • Requires strong governance to maintain overall consistency
  • Hybrid models combine elements of both approaches to balance consistency and flexibility
  • Implements clear contribution guidelines and review processes for system updates
  • Establishes roles and responsibilities for design system management across teams
  • Creates communication channels for cross-team collaboration and knowledge sharing

Key Terms to Review (19)

Adoption rate: Adoption rate refers to the speed at which a new product, service, or design is accepted and utilized by its target audience. This metric is crucial for understanding how effectively a design system can be implemented across various products and how quickly users can adapt to these changes, impacting overall user experience and satisfaction.
Agile UX: Agile UX is a design approach that integrates user experience design with agile development methodologies, focusing on iterative design, rapid prototyping, and continuous user feedback. This method emphasizes collaboration among cross-functional teams to create user-centered products that can quickly adapt to changing requirements. By incorporating UX practices into agile sprints, teams can ensure that the end product is not only functional but also provides a seamless experience for users.
Atomic design: Atomic design is a methodology for creating design systems that break down user interfaces into their fundamental building blocks, enabling a systematic approach to design. This process involves organizing these elements into hierarchical structures, from atoms (the smallest components like buttons or input fields) to organisms (combinations of atoms that form more complex components). By using atomic design, designers can create and maintain consistent style guides, develop pattern libraries, and effectively scale design systems across multiple products.
Brad Frost: Brad Frost is a well-known designer and developer recognized for his work in creating design systems, specifically his contributions to atomic design principles. His methodologies focus on building scalable and maintainable design systems that enhance collaboration across teams and products. This approach has become crucial for organizations aiming to establish cohesive user experiences across various platforms while maintaining a consistent brand identity.
Component library: A component library is a collection of reusable user interface (UI) components and design elements that can be utilized across various projects to ensure consistency and efficiency in design and development. These libraries are integral to a design system, facilitating the creation of cohesive and visually appealing products while enabling teams to scale their designs effectively.
Consistency: Consistency refers to the practice of maintaining uniformity in design elements and user interactions across a product or system. It helps create a coherent experience, making it easier for users to understand and navigate interfaces without confusion.
Cross-Functional Teams: Cross-functional teams are groups comprised of members from various departments or areas of expertise who work together towards a common goal. These teams leverage diverse skills and perspectives to foster innovation and problem-solving, making them particularly effective in collaborative design efforts, the development of design systems, scaling these systems across multiple products, and ensuring smooth handoff between designers and developers.
Design Governance: Design governance refers to the frameworks and processes that ensure design decisions align with an organization's strategic goals, brand identity, and user needs. This involves establishing guidelines, roles, and responsibilities that facilitate effective collaboration among design teams and stakeholders, ensuring consistency and quality across all products within a design system.
Design tokens: Design tokens are a set of variables that store design decisions, such as colors, fonts, spacing, and other visual elements, in a consistent format. They help maintain a coherent design system by allowing designers and developers to reuse these values across different platforms and projects, ensuring consistency and scalability in design. This concept integrates closely with components of a design system, facilitates the creation of pattern libraries and component-based designs, and supports the scaling of design systems across multiple products.
DesignOps: DesignOps is the practice of optimizing design processes and workflows to enhance collaboration, efficiency, and quality within design teams. It connects designers with cross-functional teams, ensuring that design efforts are aligned with overall business goals and product strategies. By establishing clear guidelines, tools, and methodologies, DesignOps facilitates scaling design systems across multiple products, making sure that design can be effectively leveraged as a strategic asset within an organization.
Figma: Figma is a web-based interface design tool that allows users to create, prototype, and collaborate on user interface designs in real-time. It stands out for its ability to facilitate teamwork and streamline the design process by offering features like vector editing, prototyping, and a cloud-based platform that makes sharing and feedback easy.
Jina Anne: Jina Anne is a prominent figure in the design community, known for her work in scaling design systems across multiple products. She emphasizes the importance of collaboration and effective communication in creating cohesive and adaptable design frameworks that can be applied consistently across different platforms. Her insights help teams understand how to maintain design integrity while adapting to various user needs and product requirements.
Modularity: Modularity is a design principle that involves breaking down a system into smaller, interchangeable components or modules, which can be independently created, modified, and assembled. This approach allows for greater flexibility, easier maintenance, and the ability to scale products effectively. It promotes efficiency and consistency across different products while enabling designers to create cohesive user experiences through shared components.
Responsive design: Responsive design is an approach to web design that ensures a website's layout and content adapt seamlessly to various screen sizes and orientations. This flexibility enhances user experience by providing a consistent interface across different devices, from desktops to smartphones, accommodating the diverse ways users access digital content.
Sketch: A sketch is a quick and often rough representation of an idea or concept, usually created to explore and communicate design thoughts. This visual tool allows designers to brainstorm, iterate, and convey complex ideas in a simplified manner, serving as a foundational step in the design process.
Stakeholder Engagement: Stakeholder engagement is the process of involving individuals, groups, or organizations that may be affected by or can influence a project or initiative. It is essential for gathering input, addressing concerns, and building relationships that can lead to collaborative efforts and successful outcomes. In the context of scaling design systems across products, effective stakeholder engagement ensures that the needs and expectations of all relevant parties are considered, fostering alignment and commitment throughout the development process.
Storybook: A storybook in design refers to a documented collection of user interface components and design patterns that tells a visual story of how each element should function and be styled within a digital product. This resource acts as a guide for designers and developers, ensuring consistency across products by providing a clear narrative on the usage of design elements, interactions, and branding.
Usage analytics: Usage analytics refers to the process of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data on how users interact with a product or service. This information helps organizations understand user behavior, preferences, and engagement levels, which can inform design decisions and improve user experiences. It plays a crucial role in scaling design systems across various products by providing insights that drive consistency and efficiency in design.
User Journey Mapping: User journey mapping is a visual representation that outlines the steps and experiences a user goes through while interacting with a product or service. This tool helps to identify user needs, pain points, and opportunities for improvement, making it essential for understanding how users engage over time and across different channels.
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