We worked with a cross-functional team from all around the company to create a set of principles to guide the development of design systems at Justworks.
These serve two main functions:
- for maintainers of the design system, they help us get to better decisions faster
- for consumers of the design system, they help set expectations for what the design system provides
The Justworks design system is…
🌲 Evergreen
- Every element of the design system should be purposefully curated, and given a clear, documented reason to exist
- The design system is living and breathing—always improving, adapting, and evolving with Justworks's products, brand, and the people who interact with them
✨ A catalyst for creativity
- Provides the tools to inspire creative designs by solving for the foundational, common design problems
- Foundations, components, and patterns are crafted with a focus on performance, accessibility, responsiveness, and internationalization
😊 Made for humans
- Customers and end users are brought into our process for shared understanding, and to co-create solutions
- Our design system is able to be used and understood independent of its creators
Further reading
We did a workshop to come up with the initial inputs to these principles. Here's the slides we went over, and the FigJam where we first collected our thoughts.
We reviewed the final principles during a Monthly Design System Forum call. Here's the slides from that, and the recording (password: eY$Mz=y9).