How to Adopt a Design system?

UI design codes could get really messy because of how long and complicated they get, whether you’re a beginner or an expert, at different levels, you may get lost. If you’re a designer, you’ve definitely been in at least one of these situations where you messed up the design, or you started having such questions: Where can I find the icons? How do I have the right padding needed around a table cell? Which colors go with this theme again?

But don’t worry, design systems are here to be your life savior!

A design system is a library of patterns and reusable components that UI designers use to develop UI designs for Mobile apps or websites and digital tools in general.

Design systems are guided by a set of standards and rules that determine how and when to use them.

The rules provided allows design systems to perform, just like anticipated, regardless of the way they get applied.

Even though UI designs are a question of marketing and taste, so there is no wrong or right in designs, there is only suitable, creative, and gives the customer what in needs, the choice of a design system is crucial.

How to adopt a design system?

How easy is this step going to be, depends on your choice: new or existing product. New products are easier: you just need to use the system as a foundation. As for existing ones, it’s more complex.

The big bang approach is used in cases like the designer spot immediately a value in the system, or when that’s the last option available, so he’s forced to take it, or when he wants to move on from this step.

While others use an incremental approach with the mindset of creating different options and paths to a successful design. The process is more complicated and slower, but it’s safer and more consistent.

The designer could use detailed items and literal names via incremental achievement levels by working with the from-commitment-to-full-adoption method along with abstract level labels, accessibility criteria, and patterns.

An example of using the progress through achievements level is Pitney Bowes’ team.

This helps progress by levels according to complexity and importance: from the least important to the highest, same goes for complexity. It creates sort of a checklist, more organized.

Backlogs could get intimidating, maybe overwhelming too. We already mentioned that design systems are here to save you or your team from long and complicated codes. How? By decomposing work into bite-size bits (sprints). You could also, as a low effort, integrate the NPM package. An example of a moderate effort refers to SVG (the system icon) for all system-available systems and uses the checkbox form for all checkboxes of different products. An example of a high effort is to use the system modal component for all product models.

Other than making things way easier and less complicated, dividing tasks is a great way to give the opportunity for all the team members (in case you work in a team) to influence tasks, this way goal gets achieved faster, and the team can work at ease.

Decomposing the work is straightforward for products that got first built, then tested.

But, let’s be honest, the stragglers may never be converted. Those may arise, along with high-value pages issues, due to the adoption spreading across deployments of sections or pages.

The worse part is that, in centralized systems, this approach could trigger every tiny change to go through the testing cycle affecting the updates and even hindering them, which makes it expensive and wide-reaching.

Upgrades are a must. No one wants or is willing to let their system version age and get stale. It has to change over time. Therefore, in order for products to maintain the high levels of adoption that they once reached, the question about the age of the system dependency arises. A system that’s too old will eventually slide down to lower levels. It doesn’t mean failure, but they will be certainly a lot of work to do.

Fasten your seat belts, designers the design process is getting accelerated! Arsenic Design System is made by designers for designers! Our team made sure to create a high-end user-friendly system that can be adoptable by any person in need to notch his designs. Don’t worry, you are not alone! Our consultancy team is here to guide you through!

Originally published at https://www.howtodocorner.com on August 10, 2021.