Building Design Systems: Unify User Experiences through a Shared Design Language

by Sarrah Vesselov, Taurie Davis

Learn how to build a design system framed within the context of your specific business needs. This book guides you through the process of defining a design language that can be understood across teams, while also establishing communication strategies for how to sell your system to key stakeholders and other contributors.

With a defined set of components and guidelines, designers can focus their efforts on solving user needs rather than recreating elements and reinventing solutions. You'll learn how to use an interface inventory to surface inconsistencies and inefficient solutions, as well as how to establish a component library by documenting existing patterns and creating new ones. You'll also see how the creation of self-documenting styles and components will streamline your UX process.

Building Design Systems provides critical insights into how to set up a design system within your organization, measure the effectiveness of that system, and maintain it over time. You will develop the skills needed to approach your design process systematically, ensuring that your design system achieves the purpose of your organization, your product, and your team.

What You'll Learn
Develop communication strategies necessary to gain buy-in from key stakeholders and other teams
Establish principles based on your specific needs
Design, build, implement, and maintain a design system from the ground up
Measure the effectiveness of your system over time

Who This Book Is For
All teams, large and small, seeking to unify their design language through a cohesive design system and create buy-in for design thinking within their organization; UX, visual, and interaction designers, as well as product managers and front-end developers will benefit from a systematic approach to design.

Genres: Design

162 pages, Paperback

Published April 13, 2019

Reviews

[manumicah · Rating 5 out of 5]

5+ Stars to this gem. The company I work for is in the early stages of building a design system. Sarrah and Taurie have managed to help me get buy-in for the need of a design system, as well as expanding the UX team. This book really gives you a deep insight of how organisations work and shows you different options and opportunities to enable an efficient design workflow throughout your company. Those are 100% real life experiences, as many of our generation* face the same challenges in consolidating components, patterns etc. that have been generated over the years and very much neglected. Moreover it also suggests different ways how to implement this, as every product and company have different requirements and needs. Massive thanks to the Authors for sharing their personal experiences and help your design peers out, fantastic job!

*UX/UI Designers/Product Designers etc.

[Tom Kubina · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is good just (maybe) for beggining designers who doesn't know anything about Design Systems and are new to the field. The book just scratch a surface and contains very general and broad advices - for example, it doesn't show any specific recommendation or examples in a chapter about a language and this lack of content is in every chapter. I would compare it with free articles that invites you to the topic.

[Alex Carbajo Regueiro · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far the best book about Design Systems.
I would love a second book on the same topic from this authors

[Chou Le · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book takes a case study approach, presenting its content in a book format. This framework, however, falls short in terms of providing a captivating and insightful read.

The book tends to over-explain basic design concepts, which many designers are likely already familiar with. If you're seeking a guide or innovative ways to build a design system, this book may not meet your expectations. Its focus leans heavier towards explaining established concepts rather than exploring new ideas or deeper thinking around design systems.
I'm not recommend it when you want to learn about Design System or apply it to your working process.

[Jedi Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great reference overall, largely practical and tactical. Main complaint is its lack of accompanying visuals illustrating their talking points; would prefer to have seen greater visual references and detail showing the evolution of their own system. All-in-all, it’s a handy reference to have on hand.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is O-K, provided better pragmatic insight than Alla Kholmatova’s Design Systems.

[Mike Prince · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some helpful information but definitely geared to larger organizations.