Design System/Style Guide Creation
Establishing a Scalable Design System for Cross-Platform Consistency
This prompt helps teams create a foundational design system that ensures consistency, scalability, and collaboration across multiple platforms and products. It focuses on defining reusable components, design patterns, and standards that align with the brand identity.
Responsible:
Product Design
Accountable, Informed or Consulted:
Design, Product, Engineering, Marketing
THE PREP
Creating effective prompts involves tailoring them with detailed, relevant information and uploading documents that provide the best context. Prompts act as a framework to guide the response, but specificity and customization ensure the most accurate and helpful results. Use these prep tips to get the most out of this prompt:
Define the core products or platforms the design system will support.
Gather branding guidelines and existing design assets.
Identify key user needs and accessibility requirements.
THE PROMPT
Help create a scalable design system for [specific product or organization]. Focus on:
Core Components: Defining reusable elements such as buttons, input fields, and navigation menus with consistent styling.
Typography: Establishing font families, sizes, weights, and hierarchy for readability across platforms.
Color Palette: Creating a standardized set of primary, secondary, and neutral colors, including accessibility-compliant contrast ratios.
Spacing and Layout: Setting spacing guidelines, grid systems, and alignment rules to ensure visual harmony.
Interactions: Documenting hover states, animations, and transitions to guide interactivity.
Provide specific recommendations for building a cohesive and scalable design system, including tools or platforms (e.g., Figma, Sketch, Storybook) to manage it effectively. If additional context about the brand, platforms, or user needs is required, ask clarifying questions to refine the suggestions.
Bonus Add-On Prompts
Propose modular component structures for design systems to accommodate future scalability.
Suggest strategies for documenting design system usage to align teams across disciplines.
Highlight best practices for integrating design systems into development workflows.
Use AI responsibly by verifying its outputs, as it may occasionally generate inaccurate or incomplete information. Treat AI as a tool to support your decision-making, ensuring human oversight and professional judgment for critical or sensitive use cases.
SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE
Focus on specific platforms, such as mobile, web, or desktop applications.
Include recommendations for dynamic theming options, like light and dark modes.
Tailor the system to industries with specialized requirements, such as healthcare or education.
Highlight integration with development tools or frameworks, such as React or Angular.
Propose collaboration workflows to maintain the system across distributed teams.
WHEN TO USE
During the creation of a new product suite to establish consistency.
To standardize design processes across multiple teams or platforms.
When improving or consolidating existing design assets into a unified system.
WHEN NOT TO USE
If there is no need for standardization or scalability across products.
When focusing solely on individual, isolated design elements.