Abstract
Now that we’ve established the “why” of a design system and learned how to think about design as a language, the next step is to begin implementation. In this section, we will start by assessing your organization, building a support system, and understanding the state of your product. You will learn how to build a predictable architecture that supports the multiple areas that make up your system. Once there is a clear foundation, you can begin designing, building, and implementing components while ensuring to clearly document decisions along the way. We’ve provided three case studies to help ground the discussion and provide real-world scenarios for how to implement a system based on individual needs.
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Notes
- 1.
The most common method for doing this is to set up core variables, using CSS or Sass. Another method for custom theming worth noting is “design tokens.” Used by Salesforce Lightning Design System, among others, design tokens are named entities that store UI attributes. They are often stored in JSON or YAML files and can be shared in nearly any format: JavaScript objects, Sass/Less/CSS variables, Sketch files, etc.
- 2.
“<Emphasis type="Italic">x-height</ Emphasis> ” refers to the height of a lower-case <Emphasis type="Italic">x</ Emphasis>. In typography, the x-height represents the distance between the baseline and the midline of lower case letters for a given typeface.
- 3.
HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are common languages used for web applications. If you are building a design system for mobile products, the technologies used will vary.
- 4.
The most common system used for version control is Git. It is free and open source. To learn more about how to use Git to manage your workflow, check out https://git-scm.com/.
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© 2019 Sarrah Vesselov and Taurie Davis
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Vesselov, S., Davis, T. (2019). Implementing Your System. In: Building Design Systems. Apress, Berkeley, CA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-4514-9_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-4514-9_5
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Publisher Name: Apress, Berkeley, CA
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