Building a Design System → Part II: Velocity through reuse

Developing a design system is expensive and time-consuming. The design system should always be intended to be a tool that helps designers to have a positive impact on the product. In “Part I: The smallest version of a design system”, I talked about the basics which are needed to create the simplest version of a design system. Due to its focus on consistency in look and feel, this design system does not drive much velocity within production teams. This part will discuss how a design system creates velocity, which allows designers to focus on better user experiences and other very impactful tasks.

Velocity through reusable components

The first step towards more velocity is to build reusable components in a component library.

A component library is a page that contains all styles and components used in a website, software, or app, including buttons, input fields, UI kits, and so on… It is responsive (for web use), flexible, and scalable.

Components are often counterproductive if they are only used once or twice. For a component to be a valuable contribution to a design system, it must be reused several…