Design System Maturity Levels

Giving this talk at DesignOps 2022.

This article is based on a talk I gave at the DesignOps 2022 Conference where I discussed 5 levels of design system maturity. I’m here to tell you that building a UI library is a lot like launching and scaling any other product—except this product is internal to your company.

I define a design system as a set of reusable, modular components that enable teams to build better, more consistent products at scale. It’s a common visual and verbal language of UI design shared by a team.

Where are you today?

I know many readers will be at various stages of their design system journey. So here’s a way to gauge where your team’s maturity is today:

Which of the following Design System activities is your org doing?

1. Style & interaction guidelines
   color, typography, spacing, UI elements, etc
2. Other UI best practices
   accessibility, designing for web vs. mobile, voice/tone, etc.
3. Devs & designers collaborate on reusable code components in production
4. Revisiting previously launched work and making continuous improvements
5. A dedicated team to maintain the design system
6. 🤯 What’s a design system?