Design systems have traditionally focused on tools and workflows for product teams. However, content creation is a major pain point for organizations. To address this, design systems need to expand their focus beyond products to include content creation and management tools. They also need to engage earlier in the process to understand all parts of an organization involved in the user experience. A new generation of design systems that bring together product, content and organizational workflows could help address current limitations.

1. - Even though the term Design System is currently trending — it is not a new concept.
- Historically, as humans, we are really good at coming up with systematic methods of doing our jobs. For example, during the renaissance period, artists used the
Giornata system to paint fresco murals at scale. A method devised so that artists could paint on the wet plaster before it dried.
- Systematic methods of working are most of the times born out of necessity and frustration.
- And because of that, the definition of Design System is fluid — because our needs and frustrations evolve and change over time.

2. - Back in 2002 I was a very inexperienced designer and I got my first job right out of uni at a design agency.
- My then art director and mentor introduced me to the first design system I ever used. A fixed 960 12 col grid, with elements positioned at either 5, 10 and 20 px
apart.
- Very rudimentary by today’s standards but times were much simpler then. Unless you were really rich, you had a 15” monitor.
- So websites all had the same dimension requirements. Agencies had access to big budgets, teams were sizeable and everything was designed in waterfall.
- It was the era of letterbox websites and marketing micro-sites

3. - By 2005 things remained pretty much the same. The only difference was that bigger clients wanted bigger projects which in turn required bigger teams.
- It was the proliferation of big builds.
- To make sure these larger design teams worked together more consistently, we adopted a new method for defining layout. The baseline grid.
- It was a revelation! Less second guessing in vertical positioning, faster design production times.

4. - Enter 2007 and we are witnessing a major industry disruption. The iPhone and iOS make their debut.
- Skeuomorphism establishes itself as the design system and everybody gets onboard.
- We now have two screen sizes we need to design for. And thanks to the iOS design toolkit everything starts looking the same: Shiny, bevelled and tactile.
- Production teams are now divided in two silos Desktop and Mobile. We are entering the era of dedicated mobile sites

5. - 3 years later another device gets introduced. The iPad.
- Initially we don’t really know what to do with it. Is it desktop? Is it mobile? Is it a novelty that will wear off?
- We now have 5 screens we need to design for. So we start thinking about the best strategies we can put in place for designing for multiple breakpoints.
- We are now entering the beginning of the responsive design era.

6. - And today things have gotten out of hand. Just looking at what the Big 2 offer in terms of products, we have to cater for over 20 different target resolutions.
- We simply could not keep up with the pace by using our previous methods of working and delivery.
- We needed to change something.

7. - Over the course of the last 5 years we have seen our industry change dramatically. New schools of thought emerged that tried to solve the scalability challenge.
- Product teams adopted agile methodologies and concepts to go to market faster.
- Prototyping became the go-to method for testing ideas earlier.
- We got better tools that helped us design more effectively.
- But more importantly we started thinking about design differently. We started thinking about design as a system.

8. - So as you can see, the definition of Design Systems today is not something that was put together overnight. It was shaped — and has take many shapes over
the years.
- The design systems that are the point of reference today — like Material design, Apple, Invision, AirBnB etc.. — were put together based on years worth of learning
and adaptation.
- The sole purpose of design systems today is to make product teams more efficient and consistent at designing and authoring products.
- And that’s exactly where the problem is.

9. - In the last 20 years we have become really good at creating containers. Recipients if you like.
- But what’s next? If the definition of design systems is fluid where do we go from here?
- As I said in the very beginning, innovation is usually born out of necessity and frustration.
- So to answer this question, we only have to ask ourselves: what is still creating friction and frustration?

10. - Content is the white elephant in the room that everybody is aware of, but nobody addresses.
- It is Pandora’s box.

11. - When organisations outside the editorial space try to create content for user consumption, they struggle to create good content consistently.
- And fair enough, a lot of people who are tasked to write content in these organisations, are not trained in the art of story telling.
- The larger the organisation the bigger the challenge.
- 90% of the times when we conducted design and user experience audits, we found that content is a big painpoint.

13. - From the organisation’s perspective, the obvious reason behind that, is the gap in capability and the lack of training.
- A lot of times people also underestimate how long it takes to create a good piece of content.
- But more importantly the editorial mechanisms of creation and curation are not in place.
- On the other side because we have been focusing for so long on getting products live, it seems we have diverted our attention from other critical parts of the
chain.
- Getting the shell of a product ready to ship is only one part of the equation. Making sure it has the right content in it, is the other.
- A lot of times, teams who are responsible at delivering design systems are engaged too late in the process.
- Briefs usually land when time is of the essence and rigid product launch roadmaps have already been defined. This time pressure forces us to prioritise again
product against everything else and that leads to developing design systems that neglect the client as a user and put features and functionality over content.
- If design teams want to get into the right position to identify which links in the organisational chain need reinforcing AND be able to prescribe the right tools
and workflows to help them create good content, they need to be included earlier-on in the process.
- Content is the new problem space, and designs systems will need to expand their reach by offering tools and methodologies that go beyond the product

14. So to conclude:
Design systems shouldn’t be just for designers and the product team. There are several parts of a business that are involved in delivering the end-user experience
and we need to be sympathetic to them.
And to make sure we have control over the quality of that experience we need to treat all relevant parts of a business as design system users and understand their
pain-points and needs.

15. To achieve that, we need to lift our heads up and open up our mandate, beyond the timelines of product delivery.
We need to empathise with what is happening before we start design production and after the product has launched.

16. That will lead us towards creating a set of systems that transcend the boundaries of product teams.
And that will drastically change the definition of design systems as it is today.