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How to structure design systems to help users find their way

Mary Mahling Carns
Bootcamp
Published in
4 min readJan 22, 2025
Quick, which one is the hand sanitizer? In digital worlds, designers often put very different objects in the same containers, or the same thing in different containers, and it’s confusing.

In my experience, designers are often not given a specific list of assignments to handle at the start of a project. This alone usually decreases the success of any new UX or product design initiative.

However, as designers, we are trained to work the best we can with what’s in front of us, and when we see issues, we do what we can to show non-designers the things that need to change.

This often leads to designers doing audits of the current states of sites, apps, and products since most of the time that’s what they have to work with, and what they can control.

We regularly audit websites and apps, especially when preparing a design system, as it seems like a good place to start. When we do this, we usually look for system components such as buttons, calendars, and form fields. While this approach can be helpful for things like identifying inconsistent interfaces, there is something we can inventory but don’t, and ignoring it sets designers up for failure down the road.

By focusing on design system components, and only components, designers are set up for failure By focusing on those details, they will show everyone around them that they are stuck in the weeds of a project from the start. By focusing on only components, they become perceived as doers and not makers…

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Bootcamp
Bootcamp

Published in Bootcamp

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Mary Mahling Carns
Mary Mahling Carns

Written by Mary Mahling Carns

🌟 I draw & I write about design and how it can make apps and lives better, faster, stronger 💪 🔎 https://mary-mahling-carns-halftank-studio.kit.com/profile

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