How to Create a UX Design Library
A design library is a collection of guidelines and standards that describe a design system and maybe template assets to go with it. Creating a library for an experience of any scale is no trivial matter. It’s not like you open up a code editor, chop things up, throw a ZIP file to some marketer and say, “Here you go. Enjoy!” You’ve got to have a plan.
So, let’s assume you’ve done due diligence: your design system is stable and mature, and you’ve answered all the right questions to justify the effort. You are ready to get started.
What is the Process?
The process of creating a library involves many different activities across four sequential phases:
- Analyze: understanding what it is, how it fits into your process, and what it’ll contain.
- Assemble: building it, including documentation, template assets, and how you’ll publish them.
- Adopt: communicating and getting everyone onboard.
- Adapt: administering & evolving it over time, through successive releases.
Once you’ve broken down the plan into four chunks, it’s easier to focus the conversation on specifics: individual activities that may be obvious (documenting guidelines) and what’s not (oh, yeah, you’re right, I need a communications plan!).
With this scaffolding in place, you can establish an approach and also drill into who’s involved, how long it lasts, and how much it’ll cost.
Who is Involved?
Every library is supported by a librarian (sometimes two) that coordinates activities, leads meetings, engages others, and does a lot of the dirty work. Depending on scale, the librarian may work with one or more contributors to create assets (HTML and wireframes), guidelines, training materials, and helpful tools (like a copy deck).
However, you can’t build a library in a vacuum. Depending on your objectives, inputs may come from a few or from seemingly everyone: product management, engineering, training, design technologists, writers, other designers on your team, vendors, and on and on. These folks are probably prime candidates to consume the library too, whether to understand how it works or get their hands dirty and actually use it.
How Long Does it Take?
The time it takes to build a library varies but is usually measured in months. Typical projects that transform an existing, stable design system into reusable design assets for wireframing and comps takes 2-3 months. Setting up a deeper library of code, a moderate amount of guidelines, and web-based platform for documentation and collaboration expands a timeline to 3-6 months or longer.
The three primary dials that tune how long it takes to assemble a library are:
- Scale: How many items are you formalizing and documenting? Creating a library of 10 items is far easier than a rich repository of over 500 variations.
- Design Asset Variation: It takes far less time to create a library of wireframe assets than to source, organize, and normalize design comp starting points. While “perfect” code is produced for projects, getting it into repositories and modularized for long term sustainability is more complex.
- Documentation Level of Detail: The bigger the organization, the bigger investment you’ll need to make in preparing guidelines and instructional material to help them learn and use the system independently.
How Much Does it Cost?
Cost is always a tough nut to crack, and you often don’t know the precise cost until you complete a first cycle. That said, you can guide discussions of cost using three questions: how big is it, what’s most important (such as HTML/CSS assets over other assets), and what hidden costs does the sponsor not value or understand?
The more you plan and organize the library at the beginning, the more you save time and effort later on. Getting the library’s plan and organization correct is crucial. Invest in how you are going to roll out the design library and what you’ll build by when. Get organized first. Don’t just dive in!
However, the most important thing you need to plan for isn’t even the build itself. Libraries evolve, and looking at the effort like it’s a one-and-done investment is foolhardy. Instead, be ready to align interests, funds, and people to administer the library over time.
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