The problem

Consistency is a huge part of your product’s user experience.  With hundreds of design elements (buttons, inputs, tooltips, navbars, cards etc), it becomes very easy to lose track of what has been designed and built already. The problem is exacerbated when multiple products, developers and designers are involved. Especially if you want to scale.

Every element that is designed and not reused is referred to as ‘design debt’. The more design debt created, the more you’ll find consistency slipping away, and the more your team will be misaligned.

As you scale, your design language will become a mess. Your developers and designers will spend more time trying to find if an element has already been created than solving the design problem.

The solution

Using a design system provides a single source of truth. One place where every design element is housed. The benefits include:

• Velocity - designers and developers can grab the latest version of each reusable component, without starting from scratch each time
• Rapid iteration - need to change something? Change it once and it’s changed everywhere.
• Reduced costs - more design and technical debt means things take longer to design and build, which means higher opportunity and $ costs to you
• Better UX - familiarity is the key to good UX, every time a user has to learn something new, it threatens how they perceive your product