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Design System
A design system is a set of tokens, components and guidelines that lets many people build a consistent product quickly. These twenty-five chapters, in six groups, cover the layers it is built from and the concerns that keep it healthy.
4 chapters
The primitives every other chapter builds on.
The one source of truth for every value that can change.
A systematic approach to color with purpose, contrast, and accessibility.
Type as a system: families, a scale, a measure — and the most popular fonts in the world.
Consistent rhythm through a systematic spacing scale.
4 chapters
How the pieces are organised into a system.
The five-level hierarchy that structures design systems.
Structured layouts with consistent alignment, spacing and containers.
Depth, shadows, and z-index strategy.
A coherent icon system: grid, style, sizing, and accessibility.
4 chapters
Showing information, from tables to scientific plots.
Tables, lists and data density.
Data visualisation as a set of components, not a pile of one-off drawings.
Statistical graphics for exploration and communication: box, violin, histogram, density, Q-Q, and correlation heatmap.
Toasts, alerts and banners.
4 chapters
The pieces a person actually operates.
Accessible, usable forms that guide users to success.
Headers, sidebars, tabs, breadcrumbs and more.
Modals, drawers, popovers, menus and tooltips.
Motion as a system: tokens, choreography, and accessibility.
5 chapters
The cross-cutting concerns that keep a system healthy.
Target WCAG 2.2 AA, and make the accessible path the default path.
Design for the range of screens, not for a list of devices.
One system, multiple themes.
How a design system ships, evolves and stays adopted.
Thirty named principles from psychology that explain why an interface feels obvious — and where it breaks.
4 chapters
Deep dives into color science, component APIs, data grids, and i18n.
Perceptual uniformity, gamut mapping, and colour-blind safety.
Props, variants, slots, and polymorphism — the interface between system and consumer.
Virtualization, resizing, editing, sticky, density — the hard parts of tables.
Logical properties, mirrored icons, bidi text, and locale-aware formatting.