What's a Design System Anyway?

A design system is basically your team's rulebook for building UI. It's not just components—it's colors, spacing, typography, and patterns that everyone follows. Think of it as the "single source of truth" for how your app should look and feel.

Start with the Basics: Design Tokens

Design tokens are your foundation. They're just the basic values—colors, spacing, fonts, shadows. Put these in one place and you can change your entire app's look by updating a few variables.

How to Organize Your Components

You need a clear folder structure that makes sense. Here's one that works whether you're a solo developer or a big team:

Three Types of Components You Need

Type 1: Basic Building Blocks

These are your simplest components—buttons, inputs, cards. They do one thing well and can be combined to make bigger things. Keep them flexible but focused.

Type 2: Common Patterns

These combine multiple basic components to solve common problems. Like a contact form or a user card. They're more specific but still reusable across your app.

Type 3: Page Layouts

These define how entire pages look—like a dashboard layout or a blog post layout. They're the most specific but make building new pages super fast.

Write It Down (Seriously)

A design system without documentation is just a bunch of components nobody knows how to use. Good documentation answers these questions:

• What is it? What does this component actually do?
• When do I use it? What problem does it solve?
• How do I use it? Show me the code
• When should I NOT use it? What are the common mistakes?
• Accessibility stuff: Any gotchas I should know about?

Spectrum UI comes with examples and docs for each component. You can also use tools like Storybook or build your own docs site.

When You Need to Change Things

Your design system will evolve. Sometimes you'll need to break things. Here's how to do it without making everyone hate you:

Who Gets to Add Stuff?

You need rules about who can add components and how they get approved. Otherwise your design system becomes a mess of random components.

How Do You Know It's Working?

You need to measure if your design system is actually helping. Track these things:

• Are people using it? What % of your code uses design system components?
• Are teams faster? Are they shipping features quicker?
• Does everything look consistent? Check if your UI looks the same across pages
• Is it accessible? Test with screen readers and keyboard navigation
• Do developers like it? Ask them if they enjoy using it
• Are people contributing? Are teams adding components back to the system?

Mistakes That Will Kill Your Design System

Start Small: What You Actually Need

Don't try to build everything at once. Start with the basics and add more as you need it:

Bottom Line

A good design system is one of the best things you can do for your frontend. It makes everything faster, more consistent, and easier to maintain. Spectrum UI gives you a solid starting point—use it as your foundation and customize it to fit your brand.