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

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.

• 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
  

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.

Sarrah Vesselov is a designer and developer with over 10 years of experience in web design and development. As the UX Manager at GitLab, she helped set the overall direction of UX from a design and application experience perspective. Before landing at GitLab, she was Lead UX Designer and UI Developer at Nitro Solutions and UI/UX Manager at Mad Mobile, building beautiful experiences for clients including Aeropostale, Payless, Sysco, Talbots, and AutoNation. She is passionate about teaching and mentoring the next generation of tech, serving as the Director of the Tampa chapter of Women Who Code for four years and Chapter Leader for Girl Develop It for two.

Taurie Davis is a UX and product designer who specializes in applying user-centered design methods to create cohesive, intuitive, and compelling experiences. In her role as Staff UX Designer at GitLab, she actively contributed to their design system as a primary maintainer. Her experience includes working with startups and mentoring designers around the world. She is passionate about the open source community and growing open design practices.