Scaling design systems
And the modern meaning of creativity
The design system is having its moment. IBM, Trello, Airbnb, Google — the Fluent Design System here at Microsoft — companies are evolving their design libraries and tools into full ecosystems, giving designers a way to build cohesive, consistent experiences at scale. It’s a map to align to controls, patterns, voice, and insights; to create products with an identifiable ethos and to clearly communicate it inside company walls and out to the world. More than that, these design systems are a beacon for collective creation and a signal to more open design communities, a way to speak the same language and promote collaboration. At its best, a design system is more than a set of guidelines. It creates harmony and clears the way for designers to think co-creatively about what people really need.
In this way the role of designer has evolved alongside the proliferation of technology, blending the line of artist and problem solver, requiring not just visual creativity, but a mind for business, engineering, research, and anthropology. An evolution of what it means to design. The designer is a conduit for cohesion, and at an enormous, global place like Microsoft, the importance of design alignment can’t be overstated. The way we design together translates into the experiences we deliver to the world.
The meaning of creativity
This all sounds great, right? But there’s the perceived problem of the design system lurking in the shadows: the threat of automating creativity, stripping designers of their artistry. The archetype of the designer is the lone visionary, the hero wielding a sketchpad. Consider Massimo Vignelli, Ray Eames, Paul Rand, Eero Saarinen. Their legacies carry forward into design curriculum, critical essays, the things we see and use all around us. Vignelli’s seminal NYC Transit Authority work in particular speaks to that pioneering sense of design; the achievement of cracking a code and creating something that defines a system with a new metaphor, that helps people, that simplifies and synthesizes complex information. Think of your favorite transit app. It still calls upon the same language invented by Vignelli, the difference is that in 2018 the app uncovers the customer need, their intent, their situation. Not the lone visionary behind the art. Creating digital experiences today requires not just the ability to convey information, but to have emotional intelligence and empathy, the true foundation of creativity.
That’s not to say these visionaries weren’t pioneers. On the contrary, their influence was more creative and expansive than today’s designers realize. They made beautiful things, yes. But they also related on all things scale — the challenge of affecting design, and the means to unite different disciplines, products, cultures, and businesses. In this way, the design system is by no means a new concept. Design has been used, albeit quietly, to shift company’s identities and to define the value of everything people co-create. To hold the notion of design to a higher standard and give it meaning.
A design system should make it easier to make; to build. Why reinvent the wheel or solve the same problems arbitrarily, especially when we’re trying to inspire the world to achieve more? Instead we should embrace any opportunity to challenge ourselves as designers, to think beyond the screen, to be brave enough to automate what we’ve mastered and become experts in something more, to reach the greatest number of people. So much of a design system connects our vision to our customers — what we aspire to as a creative collective becomes executable and real.
Scaling design
At Microsoft, we want to humanize the technological shift toward ambient computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and mixed reality. Connecting current devices and services to this brave new world — creating experiences that people can use every day — requires systematic design thinking. Fluent Design System is our opportunity to create a path forward, while bringing along all of our customers.
It’s also a collaboration model at heart, aligning to our greater vision to design in the open. We believe design teams everywhere should look to those scalable models and a more open design process. This isn’t to say that we should all start “designing by committee,” but to drive the point that designing in isolation, particularly at a large company, risks duplication and inefficiencies. When teams grow to a certain size, when your company makes a family of products for different markets or needs, when you have a large diverse set of customers — you’ll find the need to have a way for people to create in tandem, to bring innovation and cohesion to market. At Microsoft that means we’re investing (literally) in models like Github, working to enable more designers to contribute. This isn’t co-op for the sake of co-op, it’s an actual investment in design work and a way for designers to get recognition as they solve challenging problems that benefit teams across the company.
A living system
As we move further into this world of co-creation with openness, the pace demands adaptation. Static policies won’t serve our needs or solve customer problems, and design systems need to stay tuned and flexible to new behaviors, new technology, new businesses, and new ways of working. This is how designers not only become invaluable partners, but how they’ll quell the noise and make our surroundings approachable, logical, and accessible.
The essence of design is a verb; to think and to make. To design. For design systems to scale today we need to take that actionable notion and evolve it from that lone visionary to the design collective. We’re shifting away from a design system for designers to a design system for collaborators — always adapting, sharing, improving, and at the end of the day: designing better together.
How do you define a design system? What do you think of the open design community model? Let me know in the comments, and feel free to reach out on Twitter, too.
