(Dan Interviewing: Nichola) Design Systems: Building Consistency and Efficiency for your Business
[00:00:00]
[00:00:09] Dan: I am Daniel. I'm the Senior Project Manager here at Distinction. Today we're here with Nichola. Hi Nichola.
[00:00:15] Nichola: Hello.
[00:00:15] Dan: Today we're going to be talking about design systems and building consistency and efficiency for businesses. What are design systems and why are they important to businesses and brands?
[00:00:28] Nichola: So design systems are a living library. So they hold all of your digital assets. So we've got logos, colours, typography, grid spacing, border radius, but also your sort of components that live within a website are all in there as well. So it really helps keep that design consistency.
[00:00:50] Dan: Okay, brilliant.
[00:00:51] And. Maybe apart from consistency, what other benefits are there for businesses?
[00:00:57] Nichola: It helps speed up the process. So designers and developers work from the same design system. So you have a sort of coherent language between both teams.
[00:01:07] Dan: So at the start of the process of creating a design system, can you speak to how you do it and what tools you use?
[00:01:14] Nichola: So we use Figma to build our design system. and we start off with a template, a design system template, which we've built in house. And then we use that and add all the brand elements to it. So we add the colours and logos, typography, spacing, grids. And all stuff like that, and then we build from there.
[00:01:35] So any component that's built for the website, it then lives in the design system and is constantly referred back to and used. So a lot less rework.
[00:01:44] Dan: Is it fair to say then, we would expect clients to bring their own design assets? for you to then create that design system?
[00:01:51] Nichola: not necessarily. No, I think, if there's branding, even if it's minimal branding, that's absolutely fine.
[00:01:56] Dan: We can still build off that. so there's no pressure from the client to bring in a wealth of resources. And you spoke to there how it impacts development. Can you, just lead into that a little bit more?
[00:02:07] Nichola: Yeah, so we find that it speeds up the development, so there's a lot less rework.
[00:02:12] The communication with design development is a lot more open. They've got one source of truth that they can refer back to.
[00:02:20] So within the design system, we have each component and the states of that component. So for example, if you have an input, we'll have
[00:02:28] the error state, success state, disabled state. so a developer can refer back to that when looking at that rather than having to, talk to the designer to get that, they've got it all there in the design
[00:02:40] Dan: So it's kind of creating an a synchronous way of working. You've created the design system, the developers can then crack on with the designs.
[00:02:46] Nichola: Yeah, definitely. And it holds things like your micro animations and everything like that. So just all that information is living in that document.
[00:02:54] Dan: Yeah, we've worked together on a lot of projects where design systems are crucial for the consistency and to speed up the project. And what have you seen and how it impacts project costs?
[00:03:06] Nichola: so the whole process is a lot quicker. So obviously that reduced costs in those ways. it all runs smoother as well. You've got that source of truth and you've got that open communication between design and development. So it really speeds up the process quite a bit.
[00:03:20] Dan: Is it fair to say that the design system is never done or is it never complete?
[00:03:24] Nichola: It's always growing. Like I said, it's a living library. So you constantly referring back to it. And if you, okay. start new projects. Then you're building new components. You can feed that back into there. Or if there's any brand updates, it is constantly developing.
[00:03:40] Dan: Yeah. Brilliant. Can you share an example of how a design system has proved efficiency for any of our clients?
[00:03:48] Nichola: Yeah. So we have one client who is a large membership organization. They already had a existing design system and we were looking at, updating their student registration. So with that design system, we were able to build from that. So a lot of elements were already there that I could use. So that sped up the process massively and then I built from that.
[00:04:09] Dan: Is there a balance between creative flexibility and maintaining consistency within the design system that you can speak to?
[00:04:18] Nichola: Yeah, I don't think design systems are restrictive at all. they are just a base of your branding and you can build from that.
[00:04:27] Dan: Do you have any tips for keeping a design system up to date as businesses evolves?
[00:04:32] Nichola: Yeah, so you need someone who's going to own that particular design system and keep others accountable.
[00:04:38] So making sure that documentation is updated, and used, making sure that designers are using it and we're not re redoing components that have already been built.
[00:04:48] Dan: You've touched on a lot of different topics there and some great insights.
[00:04:53] What would be the next steps for an organization to approach investing in a design system?
[00:04:59] Nichola: I think it's that company really considering if a design system is suitable to them.
[00:05:05] if they want to grow and build on their digital presence, then a design system is definitely something they should go for. there's so much to design systems and I've only touched on a little bit, but we have got lots of blogs on our website for more information.
[00:05:18] Dan: That's brilliant. Thank you very much. thanks for watching.
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