When I started working at my new job, the first task I was given was to grow the top of funnel traffic. We all realised that we would have to create a lot of pages, which are similar to one another. We are a Fin-tech startup and had to create pages for ETFs, Stocks and other investment instruments. This was a perfect opportunity to get started with Design systems. A design system will help scale this project and also create consistency in design.

What is a Design System?

A design system is a collection of reusable components. These components can be re-assembled to create applications and interfaces. Think of components like Lego pieces. These fit together to create new things. Components are defined with clear usage guidelines and shared with the design and development team. Both the design and development team refers to these guidelines for usage.

different components combine together to form a section

Why Design System ?

With our design team just starting out, we knew we would have resource crunch. A design system would help here. We also did not have any standardised design language, and a design system would be a start in the direction. Alignment and expectations with developers about the consistency and quality in output was another reason where design system would be helpful.

How to get started with a design system ?

Getting buy-in for implementing a design system is not easy, especially when working in a fast-paced setup. The design system shows slow progress. You have to audit, research, create components, iterate, set guidelines, and communicate the system; all of this seems a lot of work when you compare it to "why don't we start building? "

It's helpful to identify an opportunity to get buy-in from management. Look out for one or more of these to access:

• You have a lot of similar but distinct design work, e.g. in an e-commerce company, we need to create landing pages for our 50 SKUs.
• Your team's design lacks consistency, it seems different designers have different design language and styles
• You have resource crunch (both developers and designers) and work will only increase in future
• Your design output is not polished and there are gaps. Designers feel the final UI is not how they designed.

As a Product manager, you will love design systems because:

1. Increases team velocity; Saves a lot of development time
2. Generate better ideas; Design team comes up with better solutions and ideas when they have more time on their hands and also a system and structure
3. Design and UI output is crisp and polished.

How to implement a design system ?

Steps: