“With the rise of design-led organizations, the role of the designer has shifted from that of mere stylist to that of a business’s number-one problem solver.”

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What made me read this book?

This book has been on my list for quite a while; one of my instructors @ Georgia Tech was a product designer @ GitLab and recommended this book as a means of selling building a design system. Sarrah Vesselov and Taurie Davis are both GitLab employees so this book offers GitLab as a case study for successfully selling, implementing and maintaining a design system.

Now (in 2023), the case has largely been made so there is less need to sell design systems. They have proven their worth - design-led organizations are some of the most successful in the world (Google, IBM, Apple, Airbnb, etc.) so many leaders already understand the value.

However, many organizations still do not. Sarrah and Taurie state very articulately in this book:

“As designers, it is our job not only to create better user experiences but also to explain why they are better, in the simplest terms possible.”

I wanted a refresh as to what the benefits of a design system are - beyond just the viewpoint of design. Rather, what are the benefits for the entire organization?

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What is a Design System?

“Design systems offer a way for organizations to build products at scale.”

In other words, a design system is - a collection of shared principles and practices that help to inform the work of designers, product managers, engineers, as well as sales and marketing. They offer a ‘single source of truth’ and are the guiding light for the design and development of a product’s user experience.

*It is also helpful to articulate what a design system is NOT. A design system is not a style guide nor component library.

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Why use a design system? What are the advantages?

In simplest terms: having a design system allows designers, engineers and management to focus less on immediate design decisions and instead focus on higher-level opportunities and features of a product while also increasing consistency and therefore UX.

They allow for:

1. Ability to work on initiatives for which you previously lacked resources

2. Capacity to create a team dedicated to the design system

3. Enriched user experiences (Depth)

4. Opportunity to add additional features to a product (Breadth)

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What are the main components?

Every design system is different. Generally speaking, there are 6 main interlocking areas of a design system:

1. Layout - defined measures that make up spacing and grid systems

2. Styles - core aspects of visual language (colors, typography, iconography)

3. Components - core elements of an interface (buttons, forms)

4. Regions - overarching design paradigms (navigation, search)

5. Content - information regarding voice/tone (terminology)

6. Usability - rules that define accessibility and internationalization (letter spacing, line height)

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Methods for implementation:

There are 2 main ways of implementing design systems:

1. Replace 1 element throughout entire product: good for consistency, overwhelming for implementation, can have cascading effects

2. Replace elements page by page: bad for UX, good for implementation

As with everything in UX, the implementation process will “depend.”

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Measuring Success!

As with everything else in design, it’s vital to measure the success of the design system - this means gathering both qualitative and quantitative data from a variety of users. This was the primary reason I decided to read this book and was the most important takeaway of reading from my perspective.

Sarrah and Taurie outline possible OKRs to use to measure the success of a design system:

1. Reduced development times and increased time to market

2. Reduced technical debt and bugs

3. Improved UX

4. Increased collaboration among teams

5. Commitment to adopt

6. Maximized adoption within certain time period

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Thoughts and Takeaways

This book does a stellar job at concisely communicating the advantages of design systems; I wish I had read it sooner! It’s worth mentioning again that Sarrah and Taurie are both employees of GitLab so this book is both generally educational but also a case study talking about the implementation of GitLab’s design system: Pajamas.

One aspect of the book that has really stuck with me is: evangelizing the design system throughout the organization and the implications of doing so. Sarrah and Taurie talk discuss that the implementation of Pajamas was, at first, unsuccessful. Many teams didn’t adopt it because they didn’t know about it. As a result, they learned to be much more vocal about ‘evangelizing’ the design system via a dedicated Slack channel, updates via email channels and talking about it in meetings. They decided to brand the system “Pajamas” and make it highly visible to everyone: employees and users via the creation of a dedicated website. This had the profound effect of more applicants to work at GitLab, increase quality of onboarding for new employees, and making it easier for everyone to contribute to the system via an issue tracker.

“It isn’t enough to have a design system. You will have to share, socialize, and evangelize it continually.”

Overall, this book was such a breath of fresh air while also providing a wealth of knowledge. I have no doubt that 100% of the information will be crucial in the future.