Why develop a system of design languages?

 

 

Candidates who complete graphic design courses after 12th can work in a variety of industries, including animation, fashion, interior design, and others. These industries are in their early stages of development and are likely to generate more job opportunities.

 

Consistency

When users interact with consistent designs as opposed to fragmented ones, they have a more enjoyable experience. For small teams and projects, creating consistent content interfaces isn't a big problem, but as they both expand, it gets harder to deliver. To address this problem and aid in the development and holistic scaling of projects, product teams introduce design language.

 

Authenticity and brand identity

 

A company's or a product's brand is how consumers view it. Since authenticity helps a product stand out from the competition, design language is one of the strongest ties a designer can use for successful branding. Personality and memorability are created by distinctive visual design choices. Take Google Doodles, a genuine design choice that has helped the brand become instantly recognisable.

 

Efficacy and price

 

Product teams can quickly iterate on product designs without sacrificing quality when a visual design language is in place. It provides designers with a clear set of guidelines to follow when applying styling to their designs as well as well-defined, reusable components.

 

How to create and use a system for design languages

 

A great design language rarely arises by accident, like all great things. It is the end result of extensive and diligent work. The five guidelines listed below will make developing a visual language more effective.

 

 

 

1: Perform a UI audit

 

Duplication of design elements results in fragmentation, and inconsistency results from fragmentation. A team can avoid the situation in which they create an element from scratch only to discover later that a similar element already exists by spotting duplication. That's why a UI audit should come first when developing a visual design language.

To gain a clear understanding of the colours, fonts, and shapes currently being used in your product, you should conduct a UI audit. This process is fairly straightforward: Take screenshots of each element that makes up your product, then group them according to their category. You should have a well-organized collection of components at the conclusion of the UI audit, highlighting any inconsistencies in your design.

 

Obtaining any brand guidelines from stakeholders is also important. You can use these to better comprehend the branding of the company as a whole.

 

 

2: Develop a vocabulary for your design language

 

Design language begins with a dictionary that defines visual units and their meanings, just as spoken language does with words and their definitions. Reusable visual units should be defined precisely in this dictionary. A style guide and pattern library should be included in your visual design language dictionary. Pattern libraries are reusable building blocks that can be categorised and grouped.

 

It can be difficult to map design elements with a clear purpose and meaning, but it is possible to assess the meaning of each element through the lens of communication. Designer Nate Baldwin suggests the following sentence structure to help you recognise, explain, and convey the meaning of each unit:

 

Every time you evaluate a visual unit, use this method. Saying "The striking red used in the sign-up form error message helps to communicate the importance of this message for users," for instance, when choosing a colour for an error message.

 

 

3: Develop overarching design principles

 

What exactly constitutes good design? How can you tell when a product is prepared for shipping? Designers frequently rely on their own set of standards when assessing the calibre of a design. However, as a team expands, adopting such a strategy can cause significant chaos in the product design process because each designer will have their own unique set of ideals.

 

Design principles can come to the rescue in this situation. Design principles outline the fundamental but necessary rules that every designer must adhere to when working on a specific product. They serve as a resource that makes decision-making easier. (Read more about this in detail in Magera Moon's article, "Creating Etsy's Design Principles.")

 

When working on design principles, it's the ideal time to consider how to express personality or purpose in your work. For instance, Direction Over Choice is one of the design tenets of Medium, a well-liked blogging platform. The following summary is provided by the Medium team: "We frequently referred to this principle when creating the medium editor. We deliberately exchanged layout, type, and colour preferences for direction. We preferred direction because we wanted people to concentrate on writing rather than be sidetracked by choice.

 

4: Make rules and follow them.

 

A design language also has rules that allow product developers to communicate with their users, just like any spoken language has rules that allow one human to speak to another.

 

These regulations are meant to impose limitations on designers. The word "constraints" typically carries a negative connotation because it suggests that creativity is being restricted, but rules help designers work more effectively. Product teams prevent team members from producing poor UX by establishing clear rules. You can distinguish between two categories of rules:

 

Rules that are strict should be adhered to precisely. As an illustration, "Red with this hex code should only be used for error messages. This colour should not be used in any other areas of the user interface.

 

Designers are advised to ignore loose rules in order to improve the utility of the page or the brand feel. As an illustration, "Try to use brand colours for functional elements of your UI when possible."

 

It's crucial to follow the rules once a product team has established an accepted set of guidelines for a design language. Consistency is the biggest mistake made when creating a visual design language, and it occurs when team members don't adhere to rules. The process of a design review, in which designers confirm the design adheres to the rules, should be introduced by UX managers.

 

5: Consider the visual language to be a living thing.

 

As cultural influences shape and have an impact on spoken languages, they tend to change over time. Visual languages are identical in every way. Every day, new trends emerge, and major corporations like Google and Apple frequently update their design standards to keep their products looking modern.

 

A visual language should instead be an evolving ecosystem that develops alongside a product rather than a set of rigid rules. And this ecosystem ought to be flexible enough to adapt to changes. Learn about current trends in order to create a design language system, and try to incorporate the most beneficial changes into your language.

 

Conclusion

 

It takes time to develop an appealing and understandable design language. It's likely that you won't have a strong visual language from the start, and that's okay. It's crucial to take the time to lay a strong foundation for the language and make sure that it develops and grows along with your team.