75% of users judge a company's credibility by the appearance of its website, according to a Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab study conducted several years ago.
Moreover, 85% of entrepreneurs check other companies' websites before using their services. So we can see how vital the website's graphic design is: the prettier and more user-friendly, the more significant the advantage over the competition.
However, in practice, preparing a good design is not so easy. This is well illustrated by UXPin's Enterprise UX Industry report, from which we learn that maintaining design consistency is the biggest challenge that, among others, web development companies face.
This is only a fraction of the problems, as there are also difficulties related to cooperation between teams and work requirements.
Troubles are beginning already with a team of more than twenty-five people. The most challenging situation arises when the number of programmers exceeds the number of designers.
Do you want to create or improve your product?
Benefits of a design system for your company
Implementing a design system in our company can prevent all these problems. We should realize that it's worth it. That's why today we'll discuss design systems and their benefits.
A design system consists of principles, guidelines, UI components, a color palette, a pattern library, style guidelines, and more. Its goal is to streamline production and design processes by making sure that all teams are on the same page.
Better UX and UI
The first advantage of the design system is that it has proven and tested components in its base that can be applied to any project.
This kind of scaling translates into an enhanced user experience and user interface and faster product development. Thanks to the use of standardized design patterns, users don't need to constantly re-learn how to navigate user interfaces.
Creating familiar and intuitive user interfaces also reduces the cognitive load and ensures that users won't leave our web or mobile application due to a less-than-satisfactory user experience.
I should add that design systems cover all aspects of the development process, including developers, designers, product managers, QA testers, and more.
The knowledge base, saving time and money
This means that individual teams can share knowledge that will transfer to the design system, resulting in consistency. The system is not a one-off product and is constantly expanding. Such a system, which employees regularly update, makes them more efficient. Drew Loomer, an architect at project202, says that using it saves more than 20% of a programmer's time. "If you have 100 programmers, it could mean savings of $2 million a year," he argues. This proves that design systems offer a considerable cost reduction.
With a design system, developers can quickly turn designs into code, speeding up and reducing the amount of coding to do.
Focus on innovation
Companies that don't use design systems face the problem of choosing between different elements, such as button type or color. Meanwhile, thanks to the system's ready-made components and a standardized process, we save ourselves this trouble and let the teams focus on new and innovative solutions. This is another of the the design system benefits.
More effective and precise work
The design system organizes the work by providing basic guidelines and interface elements. It includes standardization, ensuring employees follow a uniform pattern, and streamlining the design and development process. This prevents a situation where, for example, one of them uses a given typeface while the other chooses a different one. Graphic designers are provided with a set of specific elements and guidelines that make their work more predictable and efficient.
Moreover, design systems allow for more designs with fewer people, so our products can be launched faster.
Consistent product development
The design system is a comprehensive solution that includes basic design principles, guidelines, interface elements, and source code. We should also remember the possibility of combining it with elements of branding and visual identity, visual language, communication, vision, etc. This means that by using the design system, we ensure that we create a digital product that is consistent in every way and that users will appreciate.
Scalability
As our digital product repertoire grows, scalability problems are bound to show themselves. When products develop and introduce new functionalities and components, it's increasingly more challenging to manage them. This creates the need to ensure that the user experience offered by these products stays consistent.
When our teams start to grow, it's essential to keep the work aligned and organized, and a design system can help with this task. It creates a single source of truth from which everybody can draw.
More effective management of changes
Since a digital product is constantly changing, controlling those changes is difficult. Over time, the project becomes less uniform, which is why the design system's standardization is so important—it will clearly define the rules for creating an interface and streamline work between teams, resulting in lower expenses and time savings.
Moreover, the design is not the only thing that changes. Teams can also change, and a well-designed system will prepare us for situations in which a designer, developer, or any other team member gets sick, is on vacation, or changes jobs. With such a safeguard in place, new people can easily fill vacant roles, and getting them up to speed won't be time-consuming.
Visual consistency
Design systems enable designers to maintain visual consistency across all digital products. Here, consistency means using a uniform typeface, color scheme, illustrations, icons, shapes, etc. This helps ensure that design and development teams are using appropriate collections of elements for the right brand or product.
In short, design systems are designed to keep the brand's visual language cohesive.
Collaboration
Collaboration between design and development teams is crucial for creating products efficiently and effectively. Design systems enable teams to develop a shared language containing naming conventions that help them communicate and streamline design and development processes. Moreover, with a well-crafted glossary of terms, the onboarding process of new employees is also significantly more straightforward.
Accessibility
Design systems allow organizations to implement accessibility features from the beginning of digital product creation. Considering accessibility doesn't only mean thinking about people with disabilities but also considering aspects such as localization or translation.
A design system can help product teams incorporate accessibility functions, localization, and translation elements consistently while ensuring that they're adapted to given products or brands.
Retention of designers and developers
This benefit might be a little surprising, but implementing a design system can help companies and organizations retain designers and developers. How? As mentioned, thanks to capabilities such as the option of utilizing reusable components, teams can focus on creating new features without wasting time to solve the same old problems. Therefore, employees might be more willing to stay with a company that is well organized and allows them to unleash their creativity.
Improved workflow
A design system streamlines many processes during the development process. It speeds up the prototyping stage thanks to the access to ready-made components. It also makes communication between teams more efficient. Developers can quickly create desired features, and the quality assurance team can determine whether the project meets the defined requirements.
Easy testing
Design systems make creating prototypes and testing products much easier and faster. Team members can quickly grab and drop what they need into the testing environment, so creating interactive prototypes doesn't take hours or days. This saves time and money and filters poor design ideas.
Return on investment
Jules Mahe's article "What is the value of a design system?" presents some interesting data regarding time and money savings. Suppose the average cost of a developer is $6,000 per month. If the company invests 7.6 months in building a design system, it would save 16.74 months. This results in a 120% return on investment and savings of $100,440 annually per developer.
He also presents calculations from the designers' perspectives, referring to the data collected by Ryan Lum. Lum claims that by eliminating the need to create new components, designers can save 2.5 hours annually. Assuming the designer's hourly rate is $70, the company could save around $9,100 per year per designer.
This proves that eliminating repetitive tasks from the design process can transfer to tangible results.
Presentation of the company's principles and philosophy
When examining the design systems of different organizations, it can be observed that they contain more than just pattern libraries, color palettes, code snippets, etc. Many of them also describe the philosophy and principles guiding their designs. They help to explain what kind of logic stands behind their design decisions.
Since design systems encompass the most common use cases, sometimes designers and developers will need to come up with their own ideas. Having clearly defined principles and philosophies will help them adapt these solutions to fit into the system.
Why is having a design system in your company crucial?
The bottom line of this article is that design systems help companies optimize their design efforts, create ready-made design elements and code snippets, and improve communications between the developer and the design team. This results in money and time savings and lets the company create a fulfilling work environment that enables employees to spread their wings, use their creativity, and focus on challenging issues instead of tirelessly solving the same old problems.
This knowledge hub also makes onboarding new employees a much more enjoyable process and helps retain the current team members.
Design systems also positively impact user and customer experience by providing consistent, accessible, clear, and familiar user interfaces and cohesive brand language.
As we can see, investing in a design system has many tangible benefits for companies and their customers, and there are only a handful of reasons that would indicate that this may not be the solution for our organization. For example, if we plan to create only one product, a design system may be an unnecessary, lengthy, and costly endeavor. Otherwise, the advantages heavily outweigh any possible drawbacks.
Title photo: Pixabay.co
