State of Design Systems 2018 | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Figma’s 2018 survey of 499 practitioners shows that design systems were still developing, but were becoming a lasting part of digital product work. Most organizations lacked mature systems or dedicated teams, yet practitioners strongly aspired to more formal, public, and continuously maintained systems. The report also argues that design systems are processes and principles—not merely collections of reusable components.

Design Systems Were Still in Their Infancy

• Two-thirds of respondents described their systems as stage 1 or 2:
  • Undocumented
  • Lacking a dedicated maintenance team
• 86% wanted to reach stages 3 or 4, involving full-time staff and publicly available systems such as Shopify Polaris.
• Speakers at Clarity suggested that design systems would become standard practice, much like responsive design.

A Dedicated Team Is Not Required

• About half of respondents worked at companies with design-system teams, mostly organizations with more than 1,000 employees.
• Only one-third believed a dedicated team was necessary.
• Smaller teams and individuals can begin incrementally by solving one focused problem, such as establishing consistent line-height rules.
• The recommendation was to start small and ship improvements rather than wait for a complete system.

Systems Usually Follow Existing Products

• Only 41% of respondents built a design system alongside a new product.
• 52% created one from an existing product, while 7% had experience with both approaches.
• Building from a real product can be advantageous because the system addresses actual use cases instead of creating isolated, hypothetical components.
• Legacy design can therefore provide a practical foundation for system development.

Common Design-System Artifacts

• Component libraries appeared in 90% of respondents’ systems.
• Style guides were included by 83%.
• Other commonly mentioned elements included:
  • Design principles: 57%
  • Content guidelines: 47%
  • Code-related resources such as React components, mixin libraries, and design tokens
• Only two respondents mentioned linters, highlighting the wide variation in what organizations consider part of a design system.

A Design System Is More Than Its Artifacts

• The most common misconception was treating a design system as a static collection of pattern libraries.
• A complete system also includes:
  • Processes
  • Guidelines
  • Principles
  • Design philosophies
  • Documentation
• Component libraries are outputs of the system, not the system itself.
• Without documentation explaining the reasoning behind components and how to use them, even a technically strong system can fail.

A practical approach is to begin with a small, real product problem, document the principles behind the solution, and grow the system iteratively rather than waiting for a dedicated team or a fully formed library.