Table Of Content
This will ensure consistency in the alignment of elements in my grid. Base variables are the primitive values in a design language, represented by context-agnostic names. These can be directly used, and are inherited by all other token types (think “purple-500”). Design Tokens are used in place of hard-coded values and variables in order to ensure flexibility and unity across all product experiences and/or platforms.
Bridging the gap between design and code with Code Connect
These comprehensive guides will help you to better make a selection of framework, as well as they will make the integration process as smooth as possible. Using design tokens reduces documentation for design handoffs and saves programming time for engineers. This automated system significantly reduces human error, streamlining the development and QA process. In an informative article, Design Tokens for Dummies, Louis Chenais outlines a typical design change workflow with vs. without design tokens.
The future of design systems is marketing
A good example of a design token is the alias token used to manage dark mode and light mode. These modes are available on desktop computers, laptops, iOS devices, and Android devices, but you probably haven’t given much thought to how they work. When a user chooses dark mode, your tokens make it possible to swap from the light mode color scheme to the dark mode color scheme with just a click or a tap.
đźš‘ Design tokens to the rescue
Once the value is set for a node, the value is available to use for that node or any descendent node. The value returned will be the value set for the nearest ancestor (or the element itself). A default value can be set for a token so that the default value is returned from getValueFor() in cases where no other token value is found for a node tree. Get tips on hiring, onboarding, and structuring a design team with insights from DesignOps leaders.
Benefits of Using Design Tokens
Please note that all projects are relying on the same shared resources like data, themes and design tokens of course. By creating a consistent and easily modifiable set of tokens, designers, and developers can quickly make interface changes without manually updating each element. This eliminates a lot of time looking up specs and creates a universal element that can be adjusted across the design as well.
Example: Tokens in settings and component Sass
Token Engineering: A Blueprint for Building Sustainable Decentralized Economies - hackernoon.com
Token Engineering: A Blueprint for Building Sustainable Decentralized Economies.
Posted: Tue, 09 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Since tokens are still new in some teams' workflows, design system documentation is crucial to ensure they're interpreted and used in the best way possible. However, while writing docs is mostly seen as a burden, it doesn't necessarily have to be a huge lift or the final step in the process. If your starting point is a bunch of existing Figma styles that you need to convert into tokens, it’s natural to want to create most of the tokens in one go. I also tend not to plan much and structure and name things as I go.
A guide to design tokens
For example, I reused most styles across all themes apart from color in my above-referenced project. In each page you will find a guide for the same demo application, built with the power of design tokens generated by the Design Tokens Generator. You’ll learn how to apply design tokens to your CSS stylesheets ensuring consistent branding and efficient maintenance. Additionally, you’ll see how to use design tokens within JS framework components, allowing for dynamic theming and rapid prototyping. ReactJS is selected as the demo framework, however most observed practices will apply to other frameworks as long as they rely on JSX and CSS. Fluent’s robust design tokens were built for flexibility and accessibility.
Easy color shades with Figma tokens
Be mindful of how complex and deep your token organization is because you might want to undo a few of those groups later on. “Keep it simple” is always a good mantra, especially when it comes to code writing. Depending on your use case, different tokens and hierarchies will work better or worse than others and it’s almost impossible to be right about all decisions until the end. If you need a file to play around with, you can use my Tokens Studio for Figma — Quickstart template. The advantage is that you treat all of the 4 themes equally and wireframing and developing new features and flows with those components will have a better focus on UX, rather than distract with its UI. All of those base components can either be done in a main theme or in a neutral style.
A complete guide on creating Design Tokens in the most efficient, scalable, and consistent way. You have to use the Tokens Studio plugin to use your Design Tokens inside Figma, in your Designs, otherwise only developers can have fun with them. Component tokens communicate not only the targeted properties but also their states. A Design System’s strength comes from knowing how and when to apply options (like purple-40 or color-warning) correctly to contexts (like backgrounds or typography). This grounds the option as a design decision or what is known as a Design Token in System Design. In general, the Design System sets variables with tokens and passes those variables into functions and mixins in the source Sass.
Design tokens design tokens deal with the abstraction and management of design properties. They abstract design decisions into variables, allowing for easier maintenance, scalability, and consistency. They provide a single source of truth for design-related values. Design (or color) tokens are fundamental to creating a design system. Designers can ensure consistency and efficiency across multiple projects by defining a set of design tokens for colors, typography, spacing, and other visual properties.
1 Open jsoncrack.com2 Copy your .json file to the editor.3 VoilĂ , you can see the whole structure. Design tokens can be managed and distributed with the help of various tools and technologies. It's crucial to select tools that best fit your team's workflow and the platforms you're designing for. Each tool comes with its own set of features, so it's important to understand what each offers and how it can benefit your design process.
For example, a dimension can be created as a Primitive Token and then referenced in Sizing, Spacing, Border-radius, or box-shadow in System Tokens. Tokens Studio allows, for the first time, Design Tokens to be properly managed and used INSIDE Figma, allowing us to be more efficient, fast, and consistent. They should also be useful for everything that gives your Design System personality and character — something I like to call The Anatomy of a Design System.
Without looking at the documentation or the value, both designer and developer can tell it is a color token, meant to be used on the background of containers like cards or sections, for example. It also communicates that there might be different variants that convey hierarchy, and it also communicates that it is targeting a specific state of that surface. Learn more from some of the leaders in working with design tokens and other community resources. The term “design token” can be traced back to somewhere around 2014, when Salesforce began talking about its “single source of truth” for design. Dribbble offers high-quality courses to help you learn design systems and make yourself more marketable as a product designer. To learn more about building and scaling design systems, sign up for our 8-week Scaling Design Systems Course with Dan Mall, product designer, founder, and design systems pioneer.
If we wanted to create a design token for a primary active button using this structure, it might look like color_background_button_primary_active or perhaps shortened color-bg-btn-primary-active. This token will contain every type of color code necessary for cross-platform implementation. Atomic design and design tokens are both concepts used in design systems, but they address different aspects of design consistency and scalability. Instead of using these static properties, designers and engineers reference a token like “uxpin.cta.primary,” representing all four color codes. The color will always be the same regardless of the platform or programming language. Design tokens are one of those tools many design systems, including Google’s Material Design 3 and MUI, have adopted to make UI elements easier to implement, manage, and update.
Designers can quickly create new designs by combining existing tokens rather than starting from scratch each time. Although it’s possible to create new products without design tokens, doing so takes a lot more time — and it can add to your frustration as a product designer. Design tokens increase efficiency, promote collaboration, and ensure a high level of consistency, making them an excellent tool for organizations of all sizes.
No comments:
Post a Comment