Prologue

What are Design Systems? A design system is a collection of reusable components, guided by clear standards, that can be assembled together to build any number of applications. They are for all intents and purposes they are reusable elements in which a company can use for many different applications.

 

Design Systems

I went ahead and looks at companies who have made use of design systems for their products. I looked at IBM firstly.

IBM Design principles provide clear criteria for the conception, craftsmanship and creativity our brand demands and our clients deserve. They are for designers and non-designers alike, anyone authoring or authorizing any form of design on behalf of IBM.

As IBM states themselves, their principles have a clear criteria for conception, craftmanship and creativity. This is so their brand delivers to the demands their clients deserve.

I went ahead and put the link to the IBMs design language site.

https://www.ibm.com/design/language/philosophy/principles

This website also serves the purpose of also showing their style guides when it comes to their brand.

 

Next I looked at Airbnbs design system.

Airbnb provided a very indepth article by Karri Saarinen. The article was titled;

Building a Visual Language

Behind the scenes of our new design system

 

In airbnb’s own words they talked about why we need design systems.

Airbnb has experienced a lot of growth over the years. Currently our design department consists of nearly a dozen functions and outcome teams. It became clear that we needed more systematic ways to guide and leverage our collective efforts. While we recognized these challenges within the company, I believe they are symptoms of larger software industry problems.

Software design has few physical constraints compared to many other design disciplines. This allows for a variety of solutions to any given challenge, but also opens it to disjointed user experiences. As product owners and designers, we have to create and follow our own constraints.

 

It is say to say that using design systems can greatly reduce the amount of time one needs to create a webpage, with all their buttons, fonts and colours nicely stored away for further use. Using a design system would greatly help when making the health sector app, I may look into using them.