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Obvious University
Website
  • 👋Welcome to Obvious University!
  • Strategy
    • Sprints
      • 1️⃣Map
      • 2️⃣Sketch
      • 3️⃣Decide
      • 4️⃣Prototype
      • 5️⃣Test
    • Benchmarking
    • Research
      • 1️⃣Research guide
      • 2️⃣How to recruit users
      • 3️⃣How to conduct an interview well
      • 4️⃣How to take notes
      • 5️⃣How to prep for remote research
      • 6️⃣How to throw a watch party
      • 7️⃣How to create artefacts
  • Working with Features
    • Building with AI
      • 1️⃣Understand the tech
      • 2️⃣Map your product
      • 3️⃣Build a proof of concept
      • 4️⃣LLM Inputs
      • 5️⃣LLM Responses
    • Building Help and Support
      • 1️⃣How to scope a support experience
      • 2️⃣How to design discovery for support
      • 3️⃣How to design a support centre
      • 4️⃣How to write good support articles
  • Product Design
    • Microcopy
      • 1️⃣How to write well
      • 2️⃣How to write phrases
      • 3️⃣How to write messages
      • 4️⃣How to create a voice
    • Typography
      • 1️⃣How to compose type
      • 2️⃣How to create a type scale
      • 3️⃣How to pick typefaces
      • 4️⃣How to pair typefaces
    • Design System
      • 1️⃣Introduction to design systems
      • 2️⃣How to audit a design system
      • 3️⃣How to run a design system pilot
      • 4️⃣How to set up a design foundation
      • 5️⃣How to build components
      • 6️⃣How to document a design system
      • 7️⃣How to enable adoption and govern a design system
    • Mobile Engineering
      • 1️⃣Trunk based development
      • 2️⃣Agile development terminology
      • 3️⃣Git commit messages
      • 4️⃣Code review and pull requests
      • 5️⃣Readings
  • Delivery
    • Project Management
    • Collaboration
  • Hiring and Growth
    • Growth
      • 1️⃣Design growth framework
      • 2️⃣How to give ongoing feedback
      • 3️⃣How to check-in every quarter
      • 4️⃣How to address underperformance
      • 5️⃣FAQs
    • Hiring and careers
      • 1️⃣The Hiring Process
      • 2️⃣Diverse and Inclusive Hiring
  • PEOPLE EXPERIENCE
    • Benefits and Perks
      • 1️⃣Paid time off
      • 2️⃣Insurance and healthcare
      • 3️⃣Continuing education
      • 4️⃣Speaking at conferences
    • Starting at Obvious
      • 1️⃣Introducing Obvious
      • 2️⃣Set up your workspace
      • 3️⃣Onboarding
      • 4️⃣Finances
      • 5️⃣Code of Conduct
    • Employment policies
      • 1️⃣Equal opportunity employment
      • 2️⃣At-will employment
      • 3️⃣Employee records and privacy
      • 4️⃣Prevention of sexual harassment
      • 5️⃣Drugs and alcohol
      • 6️⃣Fraternisation
      • 7️⃣Non-compete and non-solicitation
      • 8️⃣Non-disclosure
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On this page
  • 👋 Introduction
  • 1️⃣ Collect assets for audit
  • 2️⃣ Identify existing design approaches
  • 1. Group similar components
  • 2. Interface inventory
  • 3️⃣ Identify opportunities for improvement
  • 4️⃣ Outcome
  1. Product Design
  2. Design System

How to audit a design system

👋 Introduction

Beginning a design system is pretty thrilling, but pause before diving headfirst into creating a ton of components, styles or frameworks.

In the first few weeks, take a good look around: audit, explore existing designs solutions, and dive into the teams’ use cases. This discovery work will help build a sense of how the design system should support the product.

1️⃣ Collect assets for audit

To facilitate a smooth audit, gather as many design and code assets associated with your design system as possible, including:

  • All design files of existing and upcoming features or products

  • Any existing style guides or design system files

This is also a good time to collect roadmaps from the product teams. This information will help determine potential pilot for the project in later steps.

2️⃣ Identify existing design approaches

1. Group similar components

After gathering the assets, comb through them to:

  • Group similar components visually and label their origin from specific features or products.

  • Identify commonalities among these components. This will help while abstracting the component.

This is purely an objective exercise; refrain from making any judgments or evaluations for now. The purpose is to understand existing design solutions and use cases.

2. Interface inventory

While grouping components, also take a note of the frequency of usage of these components creating an interface inventory. This will help a lot in selecting a pilot and prioritising design system components effectively later on.

3️⃣ Identify opportunities for improvement

This is a good time to understand what new patterns and paradigms can be introduced with the design system. Ask the team: what would we like to see more or less of in our product?

Some examples:

  • More or less of a particular motion

  • More or less use icons and illustration

  • More or less use of progressive disclosure

Screenshot existing examples and ask team to annotate what’s interesting or not working about them. Collect them in one place like this:

4️⃣ Outcome

After the discovery phase, you'll have a comprehensive understanding of the patterns and components across the product. There will also be a shared understanding on the potential direction the design system could take to support the product.

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Last updated 1 year ago

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Interface inventory