Want to create a design system that works across platforms like iOS, Android, and web? Here's a quick guide:

• Start with Design Tokens: These are the reusable building blocks (e.g., colors, fonts, spacing) that ensure consistency across platforms.
• Define Brand Guidelines: Set rules for colors, typography, and voice to maintain a consistent look and feel.
• Document Everything: Clear documentation helps teams stay aligned and saves time. Include usage guidelines, code snippets, and visual examples.
• Build Reusable Components: Create components (like buttons or forms) that adapt to different platforms while staying consistent.
• Test Across Platforms: Use automated tools to ensure your design works smoothly everywhere.

Build a Design System! Ep. 1: Figma Tokens & Variables Setup

Core Components of a Design System

Creating a scalable design system hinges on three key elements that work together to ensure both visual and functional consistency across platforms. These components form the backbone of a cohesive user experience, whether someone is using your app on mobile, web, or desktop.

Design Tokens: The Foundation of Consistency

Design tokens are the bedrock of any scalable design system. Think of them as the "building blocks" that store your design decisions - like colors, fonts, spacing, and animations - in a way that works seamlessly across multiple platforms and technologies.

"Design tokens are visual design decisions stored as key/value pairs." - Henry Daggett

What makes design tokens so powerful is their platform-agnostic nature. They can be converted into formats for iOS, Android, React, and more.

Take Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT) as an example. On May 22, 2025, they shared how adopting design tokens helped them achieve a unified visual identity across all their applications. By using tools like Style Dictionary, they generated tokens for platforms like iOS and Android, which streamlined team communication and made updating UI elements much easier.

Design tokens generally fall into three categories:

• Primitive tokens: These represent the most basic design choices, such as core colors, base font sizes, and essential spacing units.
• Semantic tokens: These add meaning to primitive tokens. For instance, instead of using a generic name like "blue-500", you might use "primary-button-color" to clarify its purpose.
• Component tokens: These are specific to individual UI elements. For example, a button might have tokens for its background color, text color, and border radius, all tied to semantic tokens.

To use tokens effectively, you'll need clear naming conventions and a logical organization. Start with basics like colors, then move to typography and spacing. Document each token's purpose and usage, and use version control to track changes over time.

Once tokens are in place, strong brand guidelines can further solidify your design system.

Brand Identity and Design Guidelines

A complete design system acts as a visual playbook, offering detailed instructions for maintaining brand consistency across all touchpoints.

"An essential part of any successful product development process - whether web-based or not - is a design system: an organized collection of design patterns, modules, and guidelines for common interaction and visual elements that support the consistent user interface." - The Design Management Institute (DMI)

Keller Williams (KW) provides a great example of this. By collaborating with Netguru, they built a design system that ensured visual and functional consistency across digital products for realtors. This system included fonts, colors, and detailed implementation guidelines, creating a cohesive brand experience.

Effective brand guidelines typically cover:

• Color palettes: Define rules for primary, secondary, and accent colors, along with accessibility and contrast requirements.
• Typography: Specify font families, sizes, weights, and line heights for different content types.
• Voice and tone: Ensure messaging remains consistent across user interactions.

Balancing consistency with flexibility is critical. Core elements like logos and primary colors should stay fixed, but the system must adjust to different platforms or contexts, such as mobile screens, dark modes, or accessibility needs - all without losing brand identity.

Interestingly, companies that prioritize design have been shown to achieve 32% more revenue growth over five years compared to those that don't. This highlights the long-term value of investing in well-defined brand guidelines.

With clear guidelines in place, the next step is ensuring effective documentation and collaboration.

Documentation and Team Collaboration Tools

Even the most well-thought-out design system can fall apart without proper documentation and collaboration tools. Documentation serves as the single source of truth, keeping designers, developers, and stakeholders aligned throughout the process.

A prime example is Booking.com's documented Design Language, which includes design tokens and a Design API. Their clear guidelines help streamline collaboration across platforms.

Good documentation should include:

• Usage guidelines
• Code snippets
• Visual examples to clarify how components are applied

Interactive tools, such as those available in Figma, make it easier to access and implement design decisions.

Joystream’s "Atlas" design system offers another example. It includes responsive design guidelines, detailed implementation instructions, and model components based on the W3C token methodology. This thorough approach ensures consistency, regardless of team roles or technical expertise.

To keep your design system evolving, regular training sessions and periodic reviews are essential. Establish clear processes for proposing updates, reviewing changes, and distributing new versions organization-wide. Encouraging feedback from team members fosters collaboration and ensures the system grows alongside your product.

The best design systems treat documentation as a living resource - constantly updated and refined - not as a one-time project that gets shelved and forgotten.

Building and Managing Reusable Components

Once you've nailed down your design tokens and brand guidelines, it's time to focus on creating reusable components. These components should work effortlessly across various platforms while staying true to your design system's identity. The goal? Build components that adapt to different environments without losing their core essence.

Creating Components That Work Across Platforms

When designing reusable components, it's important to think beyond just one platform. Your components need to function seamlessly on iOS, Android, and the web. Start by identifying the core functions - things like how a button responds to clicks or how a form field handles input validation. These behaviors should remain consistent, whether someone is using your app on a smartphone, tablet, or desktop.

Responsive and adaptive design play a big role here. For instance, a primary button should always reflect your brand's colors and typography. However, small tweaks - like adjusting the corner radius or shadow - can make the button feel more natural on each platform.

Once you’ve nailed down the basics, tackle platform-specific challenges to ensure your components work smoothly everywhere.

(Source: Best practices outlined in design system guides)

Managing Different Technology Stacks

Different platforms often mean different technology stacks, and that can complicate things. A smart way to start is by creating a pilot component - just one critical element built for all your target platforms. This lets you identify potential roadblocks early on and fine-tune your process before scaling up.

Leverage design tokens to automatically translate design values between platforms. Establish clear coding standards and use tools to enforce them. Providing platform-specific style guides - with examples, code snippets, and naming conventions - can help developers implement components accurately.

"A design system is a set of rules enforced by culture, process and tooling that govern how your organization creates products." – Mina

Testing your components in a frontend workshop environment before they hit production is another great way to refine them. The key is to embed best practices into your components while staying flexible enough to accommodate different use cases.

Once you've aligned your components with the technical requirements of each platform, consistency becomes the next big challenge - this is where version control comes in.

Version Control and Component Updates

Keeping components updated across multiple platforms and teams requires a solid version control plan. Adopting Semantic Versioning (SemVer) is a great start. With SemVer, version numbers clearly indicate the nature of updates: major releases for breaking changes, minor releases for new features, and patch releases for bug fixes. A detailed changelog is also crucial for tracking updates, improvements, and fixes.

Clear communication with developers and stakeholders is key during updates. Backwards compatibility should be maintained whenever possible. If a breaking change is unavoidable, provide a well-documented migration path and give teams plenty of notice. For example, Salesforce Lightning's strategy for phasing out outdated components while guiding users through the transition is a great model for effective version management.

"A 1.0.0 designation comes with commitment. Freewheeling days of unstable early foundations are behind you." – Nathan Curtis

Regular reviews - say, every quarter - can help you decide which components need updates, which should be deprecated, and where new elements might be useful. This ongoing process ensures your design system stays relevant and effective.

Building for Growth and Platform Flexibility

A design system that scales well doesn't just solve today's problems - it prepares for tomorrow's hurdles. To achieve this, you need a solid foundation that includes reusable components, adaptable layouts, and custom interactions.

Responsive Design Principles

Your design system must work smoothly on every screen size, from tiny smartwatch displays to expansive desktop monitors. With mobile traffic now making up 57% of daily internet usage, ensuring your components adapt to various viewports is essential. But it’s not just about fitting the screen - it’s about maintaining functionality and usability.

Start with a mobile-first approach: design for the smallest screen first, then enhance the experience for larger displays. This method ensures you prioritize the most critical content and interactions. Use CSS media queries to define breakpoints where your layout adjusts. While common breakpoints include 768px for tablets and 1024px for desktops, it’s better to base them on your content rather than arbitrary device sizes.

A grid system is crucial for maintaining consistent layouts across devices. For example, The Guardian uses the same card components and navigation headers across smartphones, tablets, and desktops. The only difference? The number of stories displayed adjusts based on the available space.

Typography also plays a key role in responsive design. Use relative units like ems or rems for font sizes instead of fixed pixels. This ensures text remains readable across devices and respects user accessibility preferences. Similarly, optimize images for multiple resolutions and use SVGs for icons and illustrations to keep visuals sharp on any screen.

Remember, 8 out of 10 visitors will leave a site that doesn’t display well on their device. A robust design system ensures every component looks and functions as intended, no matter the screen size.

Beyond layouts, it’s important to consider how platform-specific conventions influence user expectations.

Platform-Specific Modifications

Consistency is important, but applying the same design across all platforms without adjustments can lead to clunky user experiences. Different platforms come with their own standards and user expectations. For instance, iOS users often expect distinct navigation patterns compared to Android or web-based interactions.

The challenge is determining what stays consistent and what adapts. Elements like brand colors, typography hierarchy, and core component behaviors should remain the same. However, aspects like button styles, navigation patterns, and interaction feedback can be tailored to feel native on each platform.

To achieve this balance, create platform-specific style guides. These guides should include clear examples of how components should behave on iOS, Android, and the web. Document the reasoning behind each modification to help your team understand when and why deviations from the base design are necessary. For instance, iOS buttons might feature subtle shadows and rounded corners, while Android's Material Design buttons may use elevation and ripple effects.

A great example of this approach is Booking.com. They successfully coordinated over 200 designers and 800 developers across four platforms by establishing clear rules about what could be customized for each platform, while keeping core brand elements consistent.

Once your design system accommodates these platform-specific needs, it’s time to ensure quality through testing.

Automated Tools and Cross-Platform Testing

Testing manually across every platform is nearly impossible, which is why automation is key to maintaining consistency and quality.

Cloud-based testing platforms like BrowserStack let you test your components on real devices and browsers without needing physical hardware. These tools allow simultaneous testing across various operating systems, browser versions, and screen resolutions.

Automated visual testing tools, such as Applitools, can catch rendering issues that functional tests might miss. These tools compare screenshots across platforms to flag problems like misalignments, color mismatches, or font inconsistencies.

It’s also important to establish performance baselines tailored to each platform. For example, a button that performs well on a desktop might feel sluggish on a mobile network. Analytics can help you identify the most common platform combinations your users rely on, allowing you to prioritize testing for those scenarios.

Adopt a hybrid testing approach:

• Automated Testing: Best for repetitive tasks and regression testing. It’s accurate and scalable.
• Manual Testing: Ideal for usability evaluations and complex scenarios. It adds human insight.
• Hybrid Approach: Combines automation for efficiency with manual testing for nuanced insights.

For example:

Testing Approach	Best For	Key Benefits
Automated Testing	Repetitive tests, regression	Accurate and scalable
Manual Testing	Usability evaluation, edge cases	Human insight and flexibility
Hybrid Approach	Comprehensive coverage	Balances efficiency and insight

Use automated tests to handle core functionality and regression testing, while reserving manual testing for user experience evaluations and edge cases. This method ensures both technical reliability and a satisfying user experience across all platforms.

The ultimate goal isn’t to achieve perfection on every possible device but to ensure your design system works reliably on the platforms and devices your audience uses most.

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Managing and Maintaining Your Design System

Keeping a design system functional and effective requires continuous effort, resources, and thoughtful planning. Nathan Curtis, founder of UX and design systems agency EightShapes, captures this perfectly:

"A Design System isn't a Project. It's a Product, Serving Products."

This perspective is key. A design system isn’t something you can set and forget - it requires consistent care. Without regular maintenance, even the most well-designed system will become obsolete over time.

Regular Maintenance and Review Processes

Maintaining a design system is an ongoing process that adapts to shifts in user needs, technological advancements, regulatory changes, and organizational strategies. Think of its upkeep as similar to managing a product lifecycle. Schedule quarterly reviews to spot gaps, refresh documentation, and ensure the system stays relevant. A detailed roadmap can help guide this process, outlining tasks, milestones, and timelines for areas like bug tracking, adding new elements, refining patterns, and planning updates.

Documentation plays a central role here. Every change - no matter how small - should be recorded, along with the reasoning behind it and implementation details. Organize everything, from UI components and design guidelines to tutorials and version histories, in a way that’s easy for your team to search and access.

Of course, keeping a design system in top shape also depends on strong collaboration, which we’ll explore next.

Team Collaboration and Role Assignment

Managing a design system isn't just about the tools and components - it’s about people. Fred McHale, a design leader and product designer, explains it well:

"Building a design system often feels less like building, and more like managing a complex, evolving ecosystem. One miscalculated move, and you risk creating more design debt than you started with. It's aligning pixels; but it's more aligning people, processes, and a multitude of strategic priorities."

To succeed, teams need clear communication, regular cross-functional meetings, and a culture that values feedback. Collaboration between designers, developers, and product managers is essential to avoid silos and ensure everyone is working toward the same goals.

There are different models for structuring design system teams, depending on the size and complexity of your organization:

Team Model	Structure	Best For
Solitary	One team creates and maintains the system	Small organizations with limited resources
Centralized	A dedicated team supports the entire system	Medium to large companies with complex needs
Federated	A committee of designers collaborates broadly	Large organizations managing multiple products

In practice, the centralized model is often the most effective, with a dedicated team or leader driving the system’s success. Regular user interviews and collaborative reviews - where senior designers evaluate work against established standards - help identify issues and keep the system evolving. For example, a large company in Milpitas, California, overcame initial skepticism by treating its design system as a strategic investment. They launched a small pilot project that delivered measurable results, proving its value.

This structured approach not only ensures the system remains robust but also helps maintain a consistent experience across platforms.

In addition to internal teamwork, it’s critical to ensure your design system meets accessibility standards.

Accessibility and User Standards

Accessibility isn't optional - it’s essential. Over 1 billion people globally are impacted by accessibility barriers. That’s why accessibility must be baked into every aspect of your design system, from components to style guides and patterns. Research shows that 67% of accessibility issues stem from design prototype errors, while automated tests catch only about 30% of potential problems. This highlights the need for both automated tools and thorough manual checks.

Adopt a "Shift Left" strategy by integrating accessibility considerations early in the design process. Go beyond basic WCAG standards by documenting detailed guidelines for accessibility. As Molly Covert, Manager of CarMax's Horizon Design System, puts it:

"It's really important for us to codify accessibility as we build, because it's just as important as color or typography."

Your documentation should include clear principles, compliance goals, and actionable techniques. Create checklists that address the specific needs of your design system. For instance, Pinterest has developed user-friendly instructions to guide creators in writing effective alternative text, adapting WCAG standards to their collaborative platform. Regular accessibility audits should focus on more than just compliance - they should ensure that your system genuinely supports users with diverse abilities. As IBM notes:

"Accessible design not only helps users with disabilities; it provides better user experiences for everyone."

Finally, heed Alex Schleifer’s warning from Airbnb:

"The biggest existential threat to any system is neglect."

Key Points for Building Your Design System

Let’s break down the key takeaways for creating a scalable design system that works seamlessly across platforms like iOS, Android, and web. A successful design system thrives on three main pillars: consistency, flexibility, and collaboration. Here’s how these principles come together to support both current needs and future growth.

Consistency: The Core of Your Design System

The backbone of any effective design system is consistency. Start by defining design tokens - these are your standards for colors, typography, and spacing. They ensure a uniform experience across all platforms. Conduct a UI inventory to spot inconsistencies and address them by creating standardized components that align with your brand identity.

Flexibility: Adapting to Change

Flexibility is just as important as consistency, even if it seems like the two are opposites. As Ken Skistimas from GE Design puts it:

"Flexibility is often seen at odds with consistency, but for a design system to scale efficiently and effectively both need to be balanced."

Your design system should be adaptable, allowing teams to add new components or adjust to changing requirements without starting from scratch. A great example is PayPal, which streamlined its workflow by implementing a unified system. This change cut prototype-building time from over an hour to just eight minutes.

Collaboration: The Glue That Holds It Together

Collaboration is what transforms a good design system into a great one. As Carola Cassaro from Work&Co explains:

"Design systems have evolved to be more than just components and tools. They democratized design processes and best practices to empower product teams and businesses to ship great work at scale."

From the beginning, involve a multidisciplinary team to ensure alignment across design and development. Regular design reviews help catch inconsistencies early, while shared ownership fosters buy-in across the organization. Take Booking.com, for instance: they managed to coordinate over 200 designers and 800 developers across four platforms by establishing clear governance and communication processes.

Treat It Like a Living Product

The most important lesson? A design system isn’t a one-and-done project - it’s a living product. Document decisions, prioritize essential functions, and rigorously test across devices. As Neil Dholakia from Keller Williams notes:

"It's the interconnectedness of our system. We spent a lot of time connecting all of our systems – including our legacy systems – so that we would have all of the data."

FAQs

What are design tokens, and how do they help create a scalable design system across platforms?

Design tokens are reusable, named variables that define the core elements of a design system - think colors, fonts, and spacing. They help maintain uniformity across different platforms, ensuring a consistent user experience no matter where your product appears. Plus, they make updates a breeze. When you change the value of a token, that change is automatically applied everywhere it’s used, saving effort and minimizing mistakes.

To get started with design tokens, focus on setting up a clear and platform-neutral naming system. Store these tokens in a centralized repository to keep everything organized and accessible for both designers and developers. This approach not only keeps your design consistent across web, mobile, and other platforms but also fosters better collaboration between teams. Leveraging tools to manage and apply tokens can further simplify the process, making it easier to scale your design system as your product evolves.

How can I create a design system that ensures consistency while allowing flexibility for iOS, Android, and web platforms?

Building a Design System for Multiple Platforms

Creating a design system that works smoothly across iOS, Android, and web requires balancing uniformity with adaptability. Start by establishing a set of design principles that tie everything together. These principles should promote a unified visual identity while leaving room for platform-specific tweaks to align with native guidelines and user expectations.

A centralized design system is essential. This includes a style guide, component library, and reusable design patterns. These tools make it easier for teams to maintain consistency while tailoring elements to fit each platform's unique needs. The key to success lies in collaboration - designers and developers must work closely to adjust components in a way that preserves the brand's essence while ensuring a seamless user experience across all platforms.

What are the best ways to keep a design system updated and relevant as technology and user needs change?

To ensure your design system stays current and effective, begin by conducting regular audits. These reviews help pinpoint outdated components and confirm that everything aligns with modern design standards. This approach ensures consistency and makes scaling across platforms much smoother.

Another key step is setting up a governance team. This group takes charge of overseeing updates, managing feedback, and adapting the system to accommodate new technologies. Encourage collaboration within your team by creating opportunities for members to share ideas and suggest improvements.

Lastly, prioritize maintaining clear and detailed documentation. This serves as a valuable resource for users and simplifies the process of implementing updates as the system grows and changes.

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