Micro Design Systems: Breaking the Monolith
Modular design systems will scale better, make design faster, and be less likely to fail
Designers love to talk about a single source of truth. A singular, universal solution that forms the foundation of everything we do. A pervasive, all-encompassing system.
A design system.
But, is that centralized, monolithic approach to structuring and documenting all things design the best way to go? I’m not sold on it.
Sure, structuring a design system as a one-size-fits-all repository sounds wonderful. And it might work out at first, but our teams will likely continue to expand. As our products grow, the number of designers working on them rises. And soon enough there’s a dozen — or several dozen — designers working on the same system.
And that’s when this monolith starts to crack, crumbling under the ever-increasing size of the design system. With every use case added or design pattern documented, its glamorous facade starts to fade.
Microservices for designers
In recent years, the microservice has picked up a tremendous amount of momentum. Touted by large-scale, complex services such as Uber, Netflix, and Amazon as the best way to tackle the…
