Design
What is a design system?
Quick answer
A design system is a shared library of reusable components, styles, and rules, including colours, typography, buttons, spacing, and usage guidelines, that keeps a product consistent and faster to build. It is the single source of truth that designers and developers both work from, so every screen looks and behaves the same way.
A design system usually pairs design assets, such as a component library in a tool like Figma, with the matching coded components developers use. It includes tokens for colour and spacing, patterns for common UI, and documentation on when and how to use each piece.
The payoff grows with scale: teams ship faster because they assemble tested parts rather than reinventing them, the product stays consistent, and accessibility and quality rules get applied in one place. It is especially valuable for products with many screens or multiple contributors.
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