Building a design system can save up to 37% in development time, boost design efficiency by 34%, and even increase revenue by 23%. Here's how you can create one step-by-step:

  • What is a Design System? A framework of reusable components, patterns, and guidelines to ensure consistency across digital products.
  • Why it Matters: Saves time, reduces costs, ensures consistency, and simplifies collaboration between teams.
  • Who Benefits: Any organization developing scalable apps, especially in SaaS, healthcare, or EdTech.

Key Steps to Build a Design System:

  1. Plan: Set measurable goals, build a cross-functional team, and choose tools like Figma or Storybook.
  2. Review Assets: Conduct a UI inventory, align design with code, and ensure accessibility compliance.
  3. Build Foundation: Define design tokens (colors, typography), use atomic design, and establish grid systems.
  4. Create Components: Design reusable elements, document usage guidelines, and bake in accessibility.
  5. Maintain: Use version control, track metrics, and encourage team adoption.

Quick Tip: A well-maintained design system can save teams thousands of hours annually. Start small - document current patterns and grow from there.

Create a Design System with Figma - Full Course

Figma

Step 1: Plan Your Design System

Good planning is the backbone of a successful design system. It lays the groundwork for teamwork and ensures your system will be adopted and used effectively over time. Start by defining your goals, putting together the right team, and choosing tools that fit your needs.

Set Clear Goals

Your design system should have measurable goals that align with your organization's priorities. As one design expert puts it:

To solve problems, teams create design systems. Identifying the most pressing issues your team is facing, is the best way to get started on the right foot. After all, a design system is only effective if your organization embraces and uses it.

Pinpoint issues like inconsistent branding, duplicated components, or accessibility gaps. These challenges should shape the system's objectives.

Connect your goals to organizational priorities to gain leadership backing and team commitment. One strategist advises:

Aim high: tie your objectives to top-level org goals. A bigger carrot means teams are more likely to make room in their roadmaps. Keep it too 'local,' and it might get lost in the noise.

For example, if your company is focused on improving productivity or ensuring brand consistency, your design system goals should directly contribute to those efforts.

Atlassian offers a helpful example. In Q4 of FY24, they set a goal to achieve 95% adoption of their design system's colors, text, spacing, and icons across all product libraries. They chose 95% instead of 100% to allow flexibility for cases like user-generated content requiring custom elements.

Whenever possible, make your goals measurable. Instead of vague statements like "improve consistency", aim for something like "reduce design inconsistencies by 80% within six months" or "cut component creation time in half." Clear targets make it easier to track progress and demonstrate success.

Build a Cross-Functional Team

A design system thrives when it bridges the gap between design and development. To make that happen, your team should include representatives from both areas. At minimum, start with one full-time designer and one full-time software engineer.

Expand your team with roles like a Design System Lead, UX/UI designers, front-end developers, product managers, and, if needed, specialists like UX researchers, accessibility experts, or UX writers .

Give your team the authority to set standards and ensure adoption. Without this empowerment, they’ll struggle to make an impact. Avoid building a team made up entirely of designers or developers, as this can create blind spots and limit the system's effectiveness.

If resources are tight, ask team members to dedicate specific hours each week to design system tasks rather than requiring full-time involvement from everyone.

Set up a governance committee with members from design, development, and product management to guide the system's growth and handle strategic decisions. This ensures the design system evolves in step with the organization’s needs.

Pick the Right Tools

Selecting the right tools is key for managing version control, style guides, components, assets, documentation, and feedback. Look for tools that fit seamlessly into your team’s existing workflows. Depending on your needs, you may want tools focused on design, development, or platforms that bridge the two.

For smaller teams or startups, opt for tools that minimize manual work to save time and resources.

Some popular choices include design tools like Figma and Sketch for creating components, and documentation platforms like Zeroheight and Supernova for maintaining guidelines. Development teams often benefit from tools like Storybook for building and testing components.

When choosing tools, think about how they’ll integrate with your current processes. The right tools should make collaboration easier, not harder. Look for platforms that enable real-time collaboration and serve as a single source of truth for your design system.

Since the tool landscape is constantly evolving, focus on what meets your needs today while leaving room for growth as your design system matures. And remember, the best tool is the one your team will actually use consistently. With your planning complete, the next step is to assess your existing assets and align them with your strategy.

Step 2: Review Your Current Assets

Once you've mapped out your design system, it's time to take a close look at your existing assets. This step helps you uncover inconsistencies, find areas for improvement, and identify reusable elements. By doing this, you’ll save time and avoid duplicating effort. This review is essential for laying the groundwork for the core design elements you'll establish in the next phase.

Create a UI Inventory

A UI inventory serves as a snapshot of your current interface. As Brad Frost puts it:

"An interface inventory is a complete catalog of your interface elements."

Start by capturing screenshots of all UI elements across your applications - think buttons, forms, navigation menus, modals, icons, and more. Store these images in a shared location that your team can easily access. For example, one UI audit uncovered 116 color variables, including 62 different shades of gray.

Organize these elements by their function to identify redundancies. Tools like Keynote or PowerPoint can be handy for creating templates to group and categorize components. Don’t forget to include design policies, pattern libraries, component libraries, and branding guidelines to ensure your inventory is as thorough as possible.

Connect Design to Code

Bridging the gap between design and code is critical. This requires close collaboration between UX designers and technical leads. Review the code implementation of each design component to ensure consistency and efficiency.

Create detailed specifications that guide both designers and developers. These should include exact measurements, spacing rules, responsive behaviors, interactive states, and accessibility requirements. To streamline the process, align design handoffs with your development cycles, integrating them into sprint planning and feature development. Tools like Figma offer plugins for exporting assets and specs, while platforms like Storybook allow teams to review interactive, version-controlled components. Additionally, tools such as Percy or Chromatic can help catch visual inconsistencies through regression testing.

Check Accessibility

Once your design and code are synced, make sure all components meet accessibility standards. Accessibility ensures that everyone, regardless of ability, can use your product. In the U.S., one in four adults lives with a disability, and the World Health Organization reports that 217 million people globally experience moderate to severe vision impairment.

Start by checking color contrast ratios. According to WCAG 2.1, small text must have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1, while large text or graphics need a ratio of at least 3:1:

Text Type Required Contrast Ratio
Small text 4.5:1 against background
Large text (14pt bold/18pt regular and up) and graphics 3:1 against background

Use contrast checker tools to test your color combinations. Keep in mind that one in 12 men and one in 200 women are color blind, so avoid relying solely on color to convey important information.

Test your interface for keyboard navigation by using it without a mouse. Ensure all functionality is accessible and that focus states are clearly visible. Check form labels and error messages to ensure they’re descriptive and not solely color-dependent.

As Avinash Kaur, UX Designer, explains:

"Accessibility allows users of all abilities to understand, use and enjoy the web. As designers, it is our responsibility to make sure we design in a way that is usable to all users irrespective of their situation, abilities or context."

Ensure images include descriptive alternative text, and structure your HTML logically for screen readers. For mobile users, touch targets should be at least 24×24 CSS pixels, and alternatives should be provided for motion-based interactions.

Document any accessibility gaps you find to guide your standards moving forward. As Jesse Hausler, Principal Accessibility Specialist at Salesforce, reminds us:

"Accessibility is not a barrier to innovation."

Step 3: Build the Foundation

Once you've reviewed your current assets, it's time to create the backbone of your design system. This foundation acts as the single source of truth for all design decisions, forming the "DNA" from which every component will evolve. It connects your asset review to the creation of consistent and reusable design elements.

Design Tokens

After completing your asset review, the next step is to define the smallest elements that will standardize visual decisions. These elements, known as design tokens, are the building blocks of your design system. As Henry Daggett puts it:

"Design tokens are visual design decisions stored as key/value pairs."

Design tokens represent repeatable decisions, such as colors, typography, spacing, borders, and animations. They create a shared language between designers and developers, ensuring the design vision translates accurately into the final product.

To keep things organized, group tokens into three categories: primitive, semantic, and component. Use descriptive names like color-text-primary to clearly convey their purpose . Store these tokens in JSON files for easy access and integration.

Start with colors to make the biggest impact. Define your primary palette, secondary shades, neutral grays, and semantic colors for success, warning, and error states. Research shows that companies embracing design-driven strategies see substantial benefits - design-led organizations achieve 32% more revenue growth over five years compared to those that don't prioritize design.

Use Atomic Design

Next, structure your tokens into a hierarchy using atomic design. This methodology, introduced by Brad Frost, helps bring order and clarity to your design system. As Frost explains:

"A design system is basically the story of how an organization builds a digital product."

Atomic design breaks interfaces into manageable components, organized into five levels: atoms, molecules, organisms, templates, and pages. Here's how it works:

  • Atoms: The smallest elements, such as buttons, input fields, or icons.
  • Molecules: Groups of atoms working together, like a search form that combines an input field and a button.
  • Organisms: Larger components made up of atoms and molecules, such as a website header with navigation, a logo, and a search bar.

Start by conducting a UI audit to catalog all components. Then, categorize them into these levels to ensure consistency and scalability. The atomic approach fosters modularity, promotes faster prototyping, and encourages better collaboration by creating a shared terminology.

As your system grows, focus on reusable components with clear properties and variants. Use descriptive names and logical organization to keep everything manageable.

Grid Systems and Layouts

A solid grid system is crucial for creating visually consistent layouts that work across all screen sizes. Grids provide the structural foundation that makes interfaces easy to navigate. Choose a grid type that fits your needs: fixed (consistent column widths), fluid (percentage-based), or hybrid (a combination of both).

The 8-point grid system is a popular choice in UX/UI design because it ensures scalable and consistent layouts on high-resolution screens. It uses multiples of 8 pixels for spacing, sizing, and positioning elements.

Set up responsive breakpoints tailored to your project. For example, Material Design offers a helpful starting point:

Screen Size Margin Layout Columns
Extra-small (phone) 0–599px 16px 4
Small (tablet) 600–904px 32px 8
Medium (laptop) 905–1439px Variable 12
Large (desktop) 1440px+ Variable 12

When defining your grid, pay close attention to how margins interact with both functionality and aesthetics. Place elements within the columns, not the gutters, and use margins or padding for whitespace instead of leaving empty columns.

Test your grid with real content to ensure it supports your layouts effectively. By applying these principles, you can create designs that adapt seamlessly across devices and screen sizes.

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Step 4: Create and Document Components

Now that your foundation is set, it’s time to develop the components that teams will rely on every day. This step is where your design tokens and grid system come to life as practical, reusable elements, ensuring consistency across your application.

Design Reusable Components

Focus on creating components that serve a clear purpose while remaining flexible enough to adapt to various contexts. When you notice recurring design patterns, it’s a good cue to turn them into reusable components.

Take advantage of props to make components more dynamic. For instance, a button can include props for different variants (like primary, secondary, or outline), sizes (small, medium, large), and states (enabled or disabled).

For complex components, break them down into smaller, manageable subcomponents. This approach simplifies maintenance and isolates changes. Instead of building a massive navigation component, split it into smaller pieces, such as a navigation container, menu items, and dropdown elements, that work together seamlessly.

Consistency is key. Use prop validation and style encapsulation to ensure components behave predictably and their styles remain contained. This not only simplifies maintenance but also lays the groundwork for clear documentation.

Write Usage Guidelines

Once your components are built, thorough documentation becomes essential. Good documentation turns functional components into tools that teams can confidently and consistently use. It should act as a detailed guide, covering everything from design principles to code snippets and accessibility requirements.

Take inspiration from Pinterest’s Gestalt design system, which integrates accessibility guidance and includes a component scorecard based on WCAG 2.2 standards. This gives teams instant access to critical information.

To streamline documentation, create a standardized template. Include key details like:

  • Component states: Show examples for default, hover, focus, active, disabled, and loading states, paired with code snippets.
  • Keyboard interactions: Explain how users can navigate and interact with components using only a keyboard.
  • Prop naming and descriptions: Maintain consistent terminology to reduce confusion.
  • Version control: Track updates with links to changelogs for easy reference.

This level of detail ensures your components are not only easy to use but also easy to implement correctly.

Meet Accessibility Standards

Accessibility should be baked into your design process from the very beginning. A study by Deque found that 67% of accessibility issues stem from design flaws, underscoring the importance of addressing this early.

Start by incorporating ARIA roles and attributes so assistive technologies can interpret your interface accurately. Follow WCAG standards to create inclusive components. While WCAG 2.0 Level AA is a common benchmark for legal compliance, aim for WCAG 2.1 AA and strive to meet WCAG 2.2 success criteria wherever possible.

Anna Zaremba, Senior Design Lead at eBay, puts it best:

"Accessibility can be baked into every part of a design system, from carefully tested foreground and background colors to individual components."

Testing is crucial. Evaluate components with real users and assistive technologies like screen readers (VoiceOver, JAWS), keyboard-only navigation, and browser zoom. The U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) uses these methods to test across different browsers and devices. In 2023, eBay introduced Include, a plugin that integrates accessibility into the design process by offering actionable recommendations, such as adding alt text to images.

Document accessibility requirements for each component. Include details on image alternatives, screen reader announcements, HTML headings, and ARIA landmarks. This makes it easier for teams to implement accessible solutions without extra research. Finally, test your components in real-world scenarios to uncover any hidden issues and refine them further.

Step 5: Maintain and Update Your Design System

Creating a design system is just the beginning. To ensure it remains useful and relevant, you need to continuously maintain, update, and encourage its adoption. Without these ongoing efforts, even the most thoughtfully crafted systems can lose their edge. Regular maintenance and strategic updates help keep your design system effective and aligned with your teams' evolving needs.

Version Control and Updates

Keeping your design system up-to-date requires solid version control practices. This ensures that design files are organized and changes are tracked across different iterations, helping teams collaborate more effectively without losing earlier versions.

One effective method is implementing semantic versioning (MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH). This approach clearly indicates the nature of updates and their potential impact. For instance:

  • Major versions signal significant architectural changes that may require careful adjustments.
  • Minor versions introduce new features without disrupting existing functionality.
  • Patches fix bugs and maintain stability.

Nathan Curtis, a recognized design systems expert, emphasizes the importance of major updates:

A major version is neither a marketing ploy nor a guarantee that major effort awaits. Instead, it's a signal that a stable architecture has shifted in ways large or small, and adopters should pay attention as they upgrade.

To build trust and clarity, maintain detailed changelogs and establish consistent naming conventions. Using branching strategies to test new features before merging them into the main system can also reduce errors and improve reliability.

Get Teams to Adopt It

Once your system is updated, the next challenge is getting teams to embrace it. Treat your design system like a product - highlight its benefits and make it easy to use. A well-adopted design system can cut front-end development effort for new features by around 40%.

Start by offering comprehensive onboarding materials, such as guides and documentation, to help teams get started. Setting clear milestones and celebrating small wins can encourage adoption. Building a sense of community around your design system can also make a big difference. Consider hosting naming contests, creating team avatars, or organizing regular events to foster ownership and enthusiasm.

Alberto Calvo, who managed the design system at Maze, shares his experience:

Meeting people where they are is key. We have dedicated jam sessions and office hours weekly. We also have design systems meets every month to communicate and discuss changes with the team, gather ideas, and see what's working and what isn't.

Make adoption as seamless as possible by ensuring compatibility with tools like Figma and providing flexible resources that cater to different brand identities and product requirements.

Track Success Metrics

Tracking the right metrics can elevate your design system from a helpful tool to a game-changer for efficiency. Focus on metrics like component usage, documentation traffic, and override rates to assess its impact and identify areas for improvement.

Pay close attention to component detachment and style overrides. Veronica Agne, Senior UX Designer at athenahealth, explains:

If someone in our organization is detaching a component, I want to know why. It can mean one of three things: There's a bug, people want an enhancement to the functionality that isn't there, or people are combining existing elements in ways I didn't expect. I care about all three of those answers.

Companies like Headspace have seen time savings of 20%–30% on simple tasks and up to 50% on complex projects by leveraging design tokens and variables. Similarly, Swiggy managed to cut its feature rollout time in half by implementing effective tracking systems.

Analyzing metrics over time can provide deeper insights. For example:

Using Library Analytics, you can go back a year and examine what happened during a period where you already know the outcomes. It's almost like model learning - you can look at what might have pointed to those outcomes and use that to identify what to look for in the future.

Conclusion: Key Points for Building a Design System

A design system simplifies the process of creating digital products by focusing on careful planning, asset evaluation, foundational setup, component documentation, and ongoing upkeep. Each of these steps contributes to measurable outcomes. For instance, design systems can speed up development by as much as 37%, cut costs and production time significantly, and improve product quality and revenue by up to 23%. These measurable benefits make a strong case for adopting a scalable design approach.

The benefits aren't just theoretical - real-world examples back them up. Eventbrite, for example, saved 534 days of engineering effort after launching their design system. Similarly, Telus reduced the time required to locate standard symbols by a factor of 20, saving 6,480 hours annually. Meanwhile, Alibaba saw a 65% reduction in their codebase and up to 20% less ongoing maintenance.

As Alla Kholmatova puts it:

"Designers become frustrated always solving the same problems, or not being able to implement their designs properly. Developers are tired of custom styling every component and dealing with a messy codebase."

Design systems tackle these frustrations head-on by offering shared tools and standards that streamline workflows and encourage stronger collaboration between designers and developers.

Final Thoughts

Start with small steps, like documenting your current design patterns, and then gradually expand your library. It's worth noting that in 2020, 65% of surveyed companies already used a design system, and that number continues to rise. By involving both designers and developers early on, prioritizing documentation, and focusing on consistency, you can build a design system that grows alongside your organization.

How Zee Palm Can Help

Zee Palm

At Zee Palm, we specialize in creating design systems tailored to your needs. With over a decade of experience, more than 100 successful projects, and 70+ satisfied clients, our team of 13 experts is committed to delivering scalable digital solutions. Whether you're building healthcare apps, EdTech platforms, or IoT solutions, we ensure your design system integrates seamlessly into your workflow.

Our expertise spans AI, SaaS, and custom app development, allowing us to create systems that not only meet your current needs but also adapt as your product evolves. If you're ready to implement a design system that drives real results, we’re here to guide you through every phase - from planning to long-term maintenance.

FAQs

What challenges do organizations face when creating a design system, and how can they address them?

Creating a design system often comes with its fair share of challenges. Some of the most common hurdles include low adoption rates, poor communication between teams, and inconsistent implementation across different platforms. It’s not unusual for teams to resist change, especially if the design system feels too complex or disrupts their established workflows.

To tackle these issues, focus on making the system fit naturally into existing tools and workflows. Provide clear, easy-to-follow documentation and offer training sessions to help teams see the benefits and learn how to use the system effectively. Strong collaboration between design and development teams is essential to align goals and ensure components are used consistently.

Additionally, plan for regular audits and updates to keep the design system adaptable and useful as needs evolve. By addressing these challenges early on, organizations can build a design system that boosts efficiency and maintains consistency across all projects.

What’s the best way to keep a design system up-to-date and relevant over time?

To keep your design system functional and effective, start by establishing a well-defined governance process. This means setting up regular check-ins, collecting feedback from users, and keeping an eye on changing design trends. Make sure to document everything - like design principles, component guidelines, and update workflows - to maintain consistency and make the system easy to understand.

Routine audits play a crucial role in spotting outdated or rarely used components. Analytics tools can help track which elements are frequently used and which might need to be updated or retired. Foster collaboration by creating a simple process for team members to suggest updates or introduce new components. By consistently refining and evolving your design system, you ensure it stays a reliable and valuable asset for your projects.

What are the key metrics to measure the success of a design system in an organization?

To measure the success and impact of a design system, focus on metrics that reveal its adoption, efficiency, and value. Start with the adoption rate, which shows how extensively teams are using the design system. Metrics like time savings and time to market are key for understanding how much faster teams can deliver by leveraging reusable components. Similarly, component reuse tracks how often existing elements are utilized instead of creating new ones from scratch.

You might also want to gather insights on user satisfaction by collecting feedback about design consistency and usability. Keeping an eye on maintenance costs is equally important to ensure the system remains cost-effective over time. Lastly, monitor design consistency to confirm that products align with shared standards, creating a cohesive experience for users. Together, these metrics provide a solid framework for assessing how well the design system aligns with your organization’s objectives.

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