Create and Maintain a Design System

A design system is a collection of reusable functional elements–components and patterns–guided by clear standards that product teams use to create a consistent experience across a range of products. Design systems act as a single source of truth for an entire organization by using a singular design language to guide the development of products. Learn more about UX design systems and how design teams can benefit from them.

Illustration of two people looking at different screen sizes

By Patrick Faller

Learn how organizations’ maturity around design systems unlocks business value and higher customer satisfaction.

Don’t be a “dummy.” Design with content.

By Jenna Brucoli

No matter how beautiful or consistent your design system is, if it wasn’t developed with actual content, look out!

Design your team to design products of the future

By Lindsay Munro

Eric Snowden shares his tips and the principles you need to create a comprehensive design system.

A design system consists of both tangible and intangible elements. Components, patterns, and style guides are tangible elements:

Components are functional elements of a user interface–buttons, input fields, text labels, etc.
Patterns are individual functional elements that all serve the same purpose organized into groups–sign-in forms, menus, etc.
A style guide is a set of visual design decisions such as which colors, typography, iconography to use, as well as guidelines for using decorative elements such as whitespace and shadows

Guidelines, brand values, and design mindset, on the other hand, are intangible elements:

Guidelines are sets of rules that allow a team to design consistent and coherent experiences made up of components, patterns, and visual styles
Brand values, which naturally include a brand legend and brand mission, are a set of guiding principles that shape every aspect of your design
A design mindset is your philosophy of design that aligns a team around a clear set of goals

Both tangible and intangible elements work together to direct product teams and help them make meaningful design decisions.

A design system is not a collection of design artifacts; it’s a philosophy. To create a great user experience, product teams should understand not only what they need to build, but also, why they need to build it. That’s why design vision (in the format of a company or product strategy) and design principles (fundamental ideas about the practice of user interface design) should always be used as a foundation for design systems. Your design vision acts as a North Star for designers, communicating to product teams the global purpose of their designs. Design principles guide product teams by helping them reach the ultimate purpose or goal of the product.

Well crafted UX design systems provide enough freedom for product teams to experiment and try different creative approaches to solving problems. They represent a nice balance between mandatory and recommended rules. Product teams should never face major roadblocks from a design system when implementing new visuals; it should always be easy to update a design in modern and fresh ways.

Design systems should also be flexible and responsive to any changes in the field of design, such as new visual design trends or the rising importance of different types of emerging technology. Read on to learn how to create a design system that is right for your company or client, and for the latest updates and developments in UX design knowledge.

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