InVision presents

Design Systems Handbook

by Marco Suarez, Jina Anne, Katie Sylor-Miller, Diana Mounter, and Roy Stanfield

A design system unites product teams around a common visual language. It reduces design debt, accelerates the design process, and builds bridges between teams working in concert to bring products to life. Learn how you can create your design system and help your team improve product quality while reducing design debt.

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Introducing design systems

The power of scale

Repetition and reusability make scale possible. InVision’s Marco Suarez takes you back to the foundations of component-based design and the many ways design systems enable scaling. He also addresses a few common misconceptions about design systems.

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Designing your design system

Step by step

Starting can be the hardest step. Design systems expert Jina Anne walks through what to consider as you start out. Involve the right people, find the right model, add the right pieces—and you’ll be well on your way to establishing a successful design system.

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Building your design system

A strong foundation

Building a flexible, maintainable, stable, scalable design system creates a strong base for your product design team. Etsy’s Katie Sylor-Miller shares foundational knowledge learned building design systems across cross-functional teams.

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Putting your design system into practice

Better together

Encouraging adoption of your design system forges connections and creates champions across teams. GitHub’s Diana Mounter lays out practical strategies for sharing design systems and growing adoption, including examples from her experience.

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Expanding your design system

More than the sum of its parts

Components form the core of a design system, but teams can align around much more than components. Marco Suarez outlines how teams can round out their systems with vision statements, design principles, voice and tone guides, and more.

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The future of design systems

To infinity and beyond

Design systems play a huge role in shaping our present, but we may only be scratching the surface. Airbnb’s Roy Stanfield explores a bold future of intelligent, adaptive, context-aware systems that could further accelerate design’s possibilities.

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Appendix

More resources

Design systems continue to evolve, and every company’s system can offer something to our collective knowledge and understanding. We’ve curated a list of publicly available design systems and resources to help you continue your exploration.

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Appendix

More resources

There are a number of great resources available for diving further into the world of design systems. The folks at StyleGuides.io have not only assembled a comprehensive list of example style guides and design systems, but have also included relevant articles, books, podcasts, talks, and tools. Alex Pate has assembled a list of Awesome design systems on Github. And DesignGuidelines.co has a list of examples, as well as readings and tools.

From these resources, we’ve curated a list of design systems and style guides you may find helpful:

About the Authors

Marco Suarez

Product Designer, InVision

Katie Sylor-Miller

Staff Software Engineer, Etsy

Roy Stanfield

Design Lead, Airbnb

Diana Mounter

Design Systems Manager, GitHub

Jina Anne

Design Systems Pioneer, Independent

Design Systems Handbook

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