When does a business truly need a digital design system?

The digital design system is one of those things that can be started earlier than necessary. Many businesses jump into it because they see large companies have one, not because they have a real problem to solve. The result is spending months building a system that no one uses, or using it for a while and then abandoning it due to lack of maintenance. Sinh Vũ created this page to help you recognize the right timing for your needs, neither too early nor too late.

The clearest signal is repetition.

The question Sinh Vũ always asks before advising on any digital design system project is: "How many teams are currently building their own buttons, input fields, tables, and information cards?" If the answer is one team building one product, that's a different story. If the answer is two or three teams working on similar interface pieces to solve the same problem, that's a clear signal to start.

Brad Frost, the author of Atomic Design, refers to these non-standard interface pieces as "snowflakes": each one looks a little different, created by teams handling things their own way, unintentionally leading to chaos over time. Bringing those snowflakes back to a single source of truth is what a digital design system is created to do.

The five conditions to check before making a decision

• Number of actual running digital products: Two or more products (web, app) is a threshold worth considering, especially when those two products have different teams building the interface.
• Repetition level: Each time a new feature is released, does the technical team have to rebuild buttons, forms, and tables almost from scratch? If so, that repetition cost is evidence of the need for a system.
• Is the brand identity finalized: the digital design system only digitizes what is stable. If colors, typography, and interface principles are still changing, creating the system now is like molding something that is not yet complete.
• Has the product been tested with real users: if the product has not been validated in the market, prioritize doing that first. The digital design system serves products that already know what they need, not products that are still searching for direction.
• Is there someone responsible for maintaining the system after launch: this is often the most overlooked condition. The digital design system needs to be continuously updated according to the product. Without someone to oversee it, the system will become outdated and a burden.

When should you do it, and when is it not necessary yet

Common errors when deciding to create a digital design system

• Doing it because you see big companies doing it, not because you have a real problem: Airbnb, Google, or Shopify create design systems because they have dozens of teams building hundreds of screens. Applying that framework to a business that is not of sufficient scale is a misunderstanding of the problem.
• Start by building a library of buttons and icons first: Brad Frost recommends starting from the larger flow and combinations, seeing where reuse truly happens before breaking it down into common components. Building a component library before knowing what the product needs leads to a library that no one uses.
• Overlooking the inventory of existing interfaces: Before creating any system, it is essential to list all existing interfaces to identify discrepancies and redundancies. Skipping this step means you won’t know what you are consolidating, making it easy to create a system that doesn’t match the current reality.

Don't abstract too early. Start with the specifics, observe real repetitions, and then consolidate into general principles.

Brad Frost, Atomic Design

The viewpoint of Sinh Vũ

In service A3 (Digital design system), the first step Sinh Vũ takes is not to draw buttons or choose colors. It is to review the client's entire existing digital interface, pointing out deviations and repetitions. This step serves as objective evidence for whether to proceed and where to start. If the review shows that there isn't enough to systematize, Sinh Vũ will state this directly and suggest addressing the previous step first.

The digital design system, as understood by Sinh Vũ, is the machine-readable version of the brand identity, meaning the identity has been translated into rules and components that the technical team can use directly. Therefore, the identity must be solid first for the system to be reliable.