Question 1

What is a design system?

Accepted Answer

A design system is a collection of reusable components, guidelines, and standards that ensure consistency across your product. It includes UI components, color palettes, typography scales, spacing rules, and usage documentation.

Question 2

When should a startup invest in a design system?

Accepted Answer

Once you have product-market fit and are building more features. Too early wastes time on something that will change. Too late means accumulating design debt. Start when inconsistency begins hurting velocity or user experience.

Question 3

Should I build a design system or use an existing one?

Accepted Answer

Start with an existing system (Tailwind, shadcn/ui, Material UI) and customize it. Building from scratch is expensive and rarely necessary. Customize the foundation to match your brand as you grow.

Question 4

What are design tokens?

Accepted Answer

Design tokens are named values for design decisions: colors ($primary-500), spacing ($spacing-md), font sizes ($text-lg). They create a shared vocabulary between design and development, making updates easy.

Question 5

How do I document a design system?

Accepted Answer

Document each component with usage guidelines, do/don't examples, code snippets, and accessibility notes. Tools like Storybook for code and Figma for design specs work well. Documentation is essential for adoption.

Question 6

How do I get the team to adopt the design system?

Accepted Answer

Make it easier to use than not use. Excellent documentation, easy component access, and leadership buy-in. Address friction points quickly. Components should save time, not add process.

Question 7

What is Storybook?

Accepted Answer

Storybook is a tool for developing UI components in isolation. You can view, test, and document components outside your app. Great for design system development and maintaining a component catalog.

Question 8

How do I handle design system versioning?

Accepted Answer

Use semantic versioning for your component library. Document breaking changes. Allow gradual adoption of new versions. Never break existing implementations without migration paths.

Question 9

Figma or Sketch for design systems?

Accepted Answer

Figma is the industry standard now—browser-based, collaborative, and developer-friendly. Sketch is still capable but losing market share. Choose Figma unless your team has strong Sketch expertise.

Question 10

What is the relationship between design systems and brand?

Accepted Answer

Design systems implement your brand visually. Brand defines identity (values, voice, personality). Design systems translate that into concrete UI decisions (colors, typography, component styles).

Question 11

How detailed should component documentation be?

Accepted Answer

Include: what the component is, when to use it, props/variants, accessibility considerations, and examples. Show both the design (Figma) and code (Storybook). More detail = better adoption.

Question 12

Should designers or developers own the design system?

Accepted Answer

Both. Designers own the design files and visual decisions. Developers own the code implementation. Success requires tight collaboration. Some companies have dedicated design systems teams.

Question 13

How do I handle responsive design in a design system?

Accepted Answer

Define breakpoints as design tokens. Document how components behave at different sizes. Build responsive behavior into components by default. Mobile-first ensures components work everywhere.

Question 14

What is atomic design?

Accepted Answer

A methodology organizing components by complexity: atoms (buttons, inputs), molecules (search fields), organisms (headers), templates, and pages. Useful mental model for structuring design systems.

Question 15

How do I maintain design-code consistency?

Accepted Answer

Use shared design tokens. Regular syncs between designers and developers. Tools like Figma tokens export to code. Code components should match design specs exactly. Automate validation where possible.

Question 16

What about dark mode in design systems?

Accepted Answer

Plan for dark mode from the start by using semantic color tokens (background, text-primary) instead of literal colors (white, black). Switching themes becomes changing token values, not redesigning.

Question 17

How do I measure design system success?

Accepted Answer

Track adoption (% of product using system components), velocity (time to build new features), consistency (design audits), and satisfaction (designer/developer surveys). Success = faster, more consistent building.

Question 18

What is Zeplin used for?

Accepted Answer

Zeplin bridges design and development—it extracts specs, assets, and code snippets from design files. Developers get exact measurements, colors, and exportable assets. Reduces designer-developer back-and-forth.

I need to create a design system for my product

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