The way we do things around here.

Jeremy Keith

Design systems are a playbook of lots of design decisions which are constantly revisited and built upon throughout a projects lifespan. In the spirit of alignment, consistency and best practice they give you the biggest of starting points so you can crack on with the important problems to solve for your project. Every design system is different because every project they are formed from is different.

Kevin Healy-Clarke

There's a podcast for that...

Mike Street – Behind the Source Podcast

Any model used in a systematic approach to design (of anything).

Rasmus Kaj

It's a set of building blocks that empower teams to build designs without bottlenecks while ensuring that those designs adhere to the same core user experience, visual style, branding, accessibility, language, and performance standards. The result is a coherent design for users and lower cognitive overhead for designers who inherit each others' work.

Ben Werdmuller

Implementation of a design language.

Samuel Newman

A set of guidelines and tools that are used to create a coherent identity and user experience across your product(s).

Dan Peterson

Depends on who you ask.

If a brand/product never stops growing or changing, how do we as a brand/product ensure everything is moving the same direction?

How can developers and designers reuse existing patterns across an org?

A big investment for business.

A feather in the cap of for designers.

A PITA for devs.

Jack H Peterson

Your face.

Josh Tumath

A fine art collection.

Phil Amour

At its core, a design system is a collection of styles and UI components that build up the look and feel of a digital product. But limiting it just to tokens and components is a disservice. When embraced by an organization, a design system is something much bigger.

  • It's a process to reduce rework and lower maintenance costs.
  • It's a tool for rapidly prototyping new experiences.
  • It's a methodology for how design and UI development works across teams.
  • It's a codification of design and code best practices informed by business and customer insights.

I could go on, but they're a powerful asset for working quickly as well as working with others.

Dave Rupert

yo i heard you like lego a ds is lego for websites but not really lego more like search box and card lego u get me?

Or maybe this.

Trent Walton

A design system at its most basic version is a series of guidelines that govern the look and feel of a design. With the way government works, think of these guidelines as laws. Some design systems are a full governing system and designate how the laws they set out are enforced by also creating policy. By this I mean that they are specifying components, which are specific assemblages and combinations of the elements of the guidelines.

Darcy B

is this it?

Marco

F••k knows

Greg Lewis

Busywork (mostly).

Paul Robert Lloyd

It's dope

Christian

Brand guidelines but for UI Design.

Jamie

A design system is a set of rules and conventions that makes it possible to create a consistent design across a certain design medium.

For web software (browser) this can be a set of components, layouts and color schemes defined in HTML/CSS that can serve as a toolbox for implementation.

For a different medium, this could be something completely different, e.g. Samsung appliances could have a design system around how display and buttons are positioned and how to clean the machine on dish washers, washing machines and ovens.

Nils Rydh

Seamless visual communication between designers and developers .

Dan Leatherman

I see design systems to digital products and services in the same way that ‘brand guidelines’ once were used primarily for printed materials.

It’s a set of standards that’s used to deliver principles around consistency, accessibility, etc.

Where design systems differ from the brand guidelines of old, if done properly, is that they can support and enable better and faster delivery across a range of disciplines (e.g. product, content, design, and engineering) rather than just supporting design as a profession.

Rob McCarthy

A design system is a tool, that serves multiple different roles that work on a product (e.g. design, frontend, content). It can be a single source of truth for documentation and the first thing you look at, when joining the product team or want to create something new from existing stuff.

It is definitely different for each team, depending on their needs.

Maybe it is just the idea of a holy grail that solves all (a lot of) communication problems. :D

Christopher

A framework containing UI design decisions and agreements, usually set up to support clarity, scale and maintainability.

Bas Mooij

A set of reusable components and guidelines that instructs and enables the production of consistent visual work and/or experiences.

Henry Wilkinson

I’ll let you know when I find out.

David Darnes