Why don't we talk more about Lego?
We need to come up with better ways of defining and describing design systems to the layperson. Lego seems like an obvious and understandable analogy that would help us explain.
I was on vacation last week. A much appreciated break in Honolulu, Hawai’i. We were visiting for some old friends’ wedding anniversary and re-dedication ceremony. As is often the case when groups of friends come together after a few years apart, conversations turned to life and career updates. And, for me, requests to explain “so…what exactly is a design system?”. Requests that came from friends who work in entirely different professional spheres.
The challenge of explaining a design system in layperson’s terms can be overlooked. Much of the time we’re talking with peers and colleagues. People who work in design and technology environments, and who have a general sense of what a design system is. The nuances of that understanding might change, frames of reference may differ. But, at least in terms of the high level overview, there’s a general understanding of the subject matter.
Outside of that design and technology environment, that understanding may not exist. I’m not just talking about friends who work in entirely different areas. You may also need to provide a clear elevator pitch for a design system to an executive stakeholder unfamiliar with the topic. Or present to a general interest audience who need a level setting description.
I’ve encountered, more than once, a strange reluctance to use what seems, to me, an obvious analogy - Lego. For those genuinely unfamiliar with the concept of design systems, using Lego as an easily understandable reference can be very effective.
Lego is a universal system that shares a number of qualities with any design system.
A universally applicable core set of components (lego blocks). These components can be put together in a myriad of different ways, each creating a different experience.
Differing themes or subsystems that extend upon, but maintain compatibility with, the universal core.
Clear, accessible, documentation about the philosophy and usage of the system (lego.com).
Usage guidelines that enable the quick, and consistent, replication of experiences (individual model guides).
Like any analogy, it’s not perfect. But when explaining what I do to people outside of my professional or discipline sphere, it’s an invaluable reference point.
Lego is also a powerful demonstration of how a “system” facilitates creativity, rather than restricts it. Nobody looks at Lego and thinks it limits kids’ imagination by forcing them to work with pre-defined components. A similar argument can be made to designs and developers who fear a design system may limit their own creativity.
As design systems mature and become more acknowledged as a business benefit, the need to explain them to a broader audience becomes more important. That means being able to tailor the narrative in different ways. The first part of that is being able to give anyone a general understanding, a reference point, of what a design system actually is.
I’m not sure why I’ve encountered such reluctance to use the Lego analogy. Perhaps its a mere quirk of my own individual experience, rather than reflective of any wider trend. Non-practitioners’ eyes glaze over at someone diving into atomic design methodology. It’s great for design system builders, a terrible way to explain the concept of design systems in general. And yet I’ve seen that approach taken for more often than someone explaining design systems with simple, non-technical, reference points.
Not everyone needs a complex, in-depth, analysis of a design system. But we all need to be able to explain what one is, in simple, understandable, ways. Communicating the “what” is a vital first step to being able to make the argument for the “why”. And that’s the argument that drives funding, adoption, growth, and evolution - both for individual design systems and for our domain and discipline as a whole.