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Building Design Systems: Unify User Experiences through a Shared Design Language 1st ed. Edition

by Sarrah Vesselov (Author), Taurie Davis (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 79 ratings
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Learn how to build a design system framed within the context of your specific business needs. This book guides you through the process of defining a design language that can be understood across teams, while also establishing communication strategies for how to sell your system to key stakeholders and other contributors.

With a defined set of components and guidelines, designers can focus their efforts on solving user needs rather than recreating elements and reinventing solutions. You'll learn how to use an interface inventory to surface inconsistencies and inefficient solutions, as well as how to establish a component library by documenting existing patterns and creating new ones. You'll also see how the creation of self-documenting styles and components will streamline your UX process.

Building Design Systems provides critical insights into how to set up a design system within your organization, measure the effectiveness of that system, and maintainit over time. You will develop the skills needed to approach your design process systematically, ensuring that your design system achieves the purpose of your organization, your product, and your team.

What You'll Learn
  • Develop communication strategies necessary to gain buy-in from key stakeholders and other teams
  • Establish principles based on your specific needs
  • Design, build, implement, and maintain a design system from the ground up
  • Measure the effectiveness of your system over time


Who This Book Is For

All teams, large and small, seeking to unify their design language through a cohesive design system and create buy-in for design thinking within their organization; UX, visual, and interaction designers, as well as product managers and front-end developers will benefit from a systematic approach to design.
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Previous page
  1. ISBN-10
    148424513X
  2. ISBN-13
    978-1484245132
  3. Edition
    1st ed.
  4. Publication date
    April 13, 2019
  5. Language
    English
  6. Dimensions
    6.1 x 0.37 x 9.25 inches
  7. Print length
    162 pages
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Learn how to build a design system framed within the context of your specific business needs. This book guides you through the process of defining a design language that can be understood across teams, while also establishing communication strategies for how to sell your system to key stakeholders and other contributors.

With a defined set of components and guidelines, designers can focus their efforts on solving user needs rather than recreating elements and reinventing solutions. You'll learn how to use an interface inventory to surface inconsistencies and inefficient solutions, as well as how to establish a component library by documenting existing patterns and creating new ones. You'll also see how the creation of self-documenting styles and components will streamline your UX process.

Building Design Systems provides critical insights into how to set up a design system within your organization, measure the effectiveness of that system, and maintainit over time. You will develop the skills needed to approach your design process systematically, ensuring that your design system achieves the purpose of your organization, your product, and your team.

About the Author

Sarrah Vesselov is a designer and developer with over 10 years of experience in web design and development. As the UX Manager at GitLab, she helped set the overall direction of UX from a design and application experience perspective. Before landing at GitLab, she was Lead UX Designer and UI Developer at Nitro Solutions and UI/UX Manager at Mad Mobile, building beautiful experiences for clients including Aeropostale, Payless, Sysco, Talbots, and AutoNation. She is passionate about teaching and mentoring the next generation of tech, serving as the Director of the Tampa chapter of Women Who Code for four years and Chapter Leader for Girl Develop It for two.

Taurie Davis is a UX and product designer who specializes in applying user-centered design methods to create cohesive, intuitive, and compelling experiences. In her role as Staff UX Designer at GitLab, she actively contributed to their design system as a primary maintainer. Her experience includes working with startups and mentoring designers around the world. She is passionate about the open source community and growing open design practices.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Apress; 1st ed. edition (April 13, 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 162 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 148424513X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1484245132
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.5 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.1 x 0.37 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 79 ratings

About the authors

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Previous page
  1. Taurie Davis

    Taurie Davis

    Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    Taurie Davis is a UX and product designer who specializes in applying user-centered design methods to create cohesive, intuitive, and compelling experiences. In her role as Staff UX Designer at GitLab, she actively contributed to their design system as a primary maintainer. Her experience includes working with startups and mentoring designers around the world. She is passionate about the open source community and growing open design practices.

    See more on the author's page
  2. Sarrah Vesselov

    Sarrah Vesselov

    Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    Sarrah Vesselov is a UX professional, speaker, and author with over 10 years of experience in design, development, and management. As the UX Manager for GitLab, she led her department in setting the vision and direction of user experience, established an open source design system, and scaled the department from six to fourteen in a little over a year. She has experience teaching and mentoring on the subjects of design and development at the college level. Sarrah speaks at conferences around the world on the topics of user experience and front-end development.

    See more on the author's page
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Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
79 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars A critical component in kickstarting your design system
Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2019
Verified Purchase
A fantastic primer on both building design systems and integrating them into your organization!

There are 2 hard parts to getting started: figuring out what your goal is and figuring out how to execute that goal. With case studies and expert guidance BDS directs the reader through how to talk about your goals and how to bring everyone together. This is critical to successfully executing a plan and once the fervor is there, it's even easier to get started.

The focus on selling your system gave me plenty of points to advocate and evangelize the system to my organization. It gave me a great understanding of how to speak to each stakeholder in a way that addresses their concerns and tie the aims of the system into the organization's goals, as a whole.

One of the items I found most interesting was the focus on what makes a design language a "language". Chapter 3 took a unique approach to describing the intersection between human language and system thinking in a way I found fascinating. The concept of applying common ideas like grammar to the components of a design system humanized the approach and made it much easier to grok.

I would recommend BDS to any organization, big or small. It's a great read that provides an approachable and well-rounded strategy to making design systems a collaborative effort.
5 people found this helpful
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Brady Haynes
5.0 out of 5 stars A comprehensive resource for anyone involved with Design Systems
Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2019
Verified Purchase
Building Design Systems is a book that can help you out—regardless of what point in the process you may be in. It provides high-level definition as well as tangible guidance for those in the weeds of implementation.

A couple of pieces of content that I didn’t expect—but were incredibly helpful—were around getting buy-in with a cross-functional team and proving ROI for the resources needed to implement the System. Delivering value is one of the business pieces that need to be a part of the process to ensure that product, engineering, business, AND design are in alignment when it comes time for integration. The book goes beyond a standalone design system, and speaks to communicating data-driven value from its implementation.

Not only does the book lay out the process, but also provides tangible steps and nuances that would otherwise be overlooked in implementation. Taurie & Sarrah move beyond theory and discuss their journey by providing insight and guidance with a case study, which allows those of us who may be anywhere along the journey to empathize, relate, and take a breath of fresh air as they share their wisdom.
2 people found this helpful
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User
5.0 out of 5 stars Useful Overview of Design Systems
Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2021
Verified Purchase
A handy book for those who at least have some understanding about design systems. Helpful for those who already had experience in creating and working on a design system. Touches on different aspects such as buy-ins, involving other teams like marketing, tooling, measuring success, etc. Overall, a good read.
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Paul 1
5.0 out of 5 stars Don't think too much - they already did.
Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2021
Verified Purchase
This is one of the few books where I let my breath out and appreciated the work that not only went into it's writing but immediately applied. Concise, inclusive. Felt like I was copying someone else's homework.
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Vince P
3.0 out of 5 stars Design systems primer
Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2019
Verified Purchase
A little to basic to be useful for teams building advanced systems. Great for teams considering or looking to get started with design systems.
9 people found this helpful
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Eric H
2.0 out of 5 stars Describes the business value, not the implementation
Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2020
Verified Purchase
This book should be directed more toward business leaders who may not know how to value design. As a designer, I already understand the necessity and purpose of creating a design system. I was hoping this book might add some new thinking around how to organize and disseminate the system, but alas, no such luck.
11 people found this helpful
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joe sip
5.0 out of 5 stars Get it now! :-)
Reviewed in the United States on October 21, 2019
Verified Purchase
Very detailed writing about what a design system is and how to go about implementing one. I love the fact touches base on how GitLab implemented their design system. Totally worth the read!
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Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Practical book on how to actually build design systems
Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2019
If you already know what a design system is but are missing the practical part of how to actually get it done, this is the book for you. It connects previously scattered knowledge to guide designers, developers, and managers on how to start, maintain, and evolve a design system.

The book focuses on design systems for products but also gives some tips on how agencies can leverage them to be more efficient. It's small and easy to read but contains a lot of value with practical examples and case studies throughout.

I was delighted to see not so appealing topics like selling a design system or measuring its success, written in a way that anyone can understand and implement, with templates and step by step guides.
4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Weslei Nunes
4.0 out of 5 stars útil/essencial
Reviewed in Brazil on July 13, 2023
Verified Purchase
O livro traz conceitos básicos, porém, fundamental para pretende começar a construção de um design system. A área de UI/UX precisa de produções e registro de conhecimento com este. Recomendo!
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Himanshu Mody
1.0 out of 5 stars Very basic and lacks depth and real life examples
Reviewed in India on October 9, 2023
Verified Purchase
For the cost , I expected a lot more depth from this book , it was very disappointing to see topics touched at a very very high level. Not recommended at all
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oscar tello
5.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting contribution on design and programming
Reviewed in Mexico on May 26, 2020
Verified Purchase
For some ones, it could be very basic, however, for me who have worked in web design for more than 15 years, it has turned out to be a great guide to change the paradigm.

I wrote with one of the authors to get her permission to use it as a guide in one of my design classes and it was very well received by the students.

In short, it is a book focused on designers, which allows them to create a methodology with the 6 points of interconnection that the authors propose to systematically work with digital products.
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