Design Systems Designer Course

Lesson 1 • Auditing Existing UI Patterns

Introduces visual and functional auditing as the first practical step before building. Produces an inventory that informs system scope.

Lesson 2 • Key Roles and Responsibilities

Identifies who owns, contributes to, and consumes a design system. Clarifies the designer's specific accountability within cross-functional teams.

Lesson 3 • Business Value and Team Alignment

Connects design system investment to measurable business outcomes. Equips students to justify system work to stakeholders.

Lesson 4 • Design System Maturity Models

Maps the spectrum from ad-hoc patterns to governed, versioned systems. Helps students assess where an organisation currently stands.

Lesson 1 • Spacing, Sizing, and Grid Tokens

Establishes numeric spacing scales and layout grids as token-driven decisions. Creates the structural rhythm that unifies all components.

Lesson 2 • Color Systems and Palettes

Covers building accessible, purposeful colour palettes with semantic naming. Directly feeds the token layer introduced in the previous section.

Lesson 3 • Introduction to Design Tokens

Explains tokens as named, platform-agnostic design decisions stored as data. Establishes why tokens are the foundation of a scalable system.

Lesson 4 • Elevation, Motion, and Effect Tokens

Extends the token system to shadows, blur, and animation timing values. Completes the full visual language needed before building components.

Lesson 1 • Designing for Flexibility and Reuse

Covers techniques for making components adaptable without creating fragile overrides. Balances flexibility with system consistency.

Lesson 2 • Component Anatomy and States

Breaks down every component into parts, variants, and interactive states. Ensures components cover all real-world usage scenarios before handoff.

Lesson 3 • Component Specification and Handoff

Defines what a complete component spec includes for engineering implementation. Bridges the gap between design intent and coded output.

Lesson 4 • Variants and Properties in Design Tools

Teaches how to build component variants and expose properties in design tool component systems. Directly enables efficient designer consumption of the system.

Lesson 1 • Keyboard and Focus Management

Designs focus order, visible focus styles, and keyboard interaction patterns. Ensures components are fully operable without a pointer device.

Lesson 2 • Accessibility Documentation and Testing

Establishes how to document accessibility requirements within the system and verify them. Closes the loop between design intent and tested output.

Lesson 3 • Accessibility Principles for Systems

Grounds accessibility in perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust principles. Frames why system-level accessibility multiplies impact across products.

Lesson 4 • Colour Contrast and Visual Accessibility

Applies contrast ratio requirements to the colour token system built earlier. Ensures the visual language is usable by people with low vision.

Lesson 1 • Token Pipeline and Cross-Platform Delivery

Maps the workflow from design tool tokens to platform-specific output formats. Closes the loop between design decisions and engineering implementation.

Lesson 2 • Responsive and Adaptive Design Patterns

Applies token-driven breakpoints and adaptive layouts to system components. Ensures components behave correctly across all viewport sizes.

Lesson 3 • Multi-Brand System Architecture

Covers strategies for sharing a core system across multiple product brands. Balances brand differentiation with system consistency.

Lesson 4 • Platform-Specific Design Considerations

Identifies where web, iOS, and Android design patterns diverge and where they align. Prevents over-engineering a single system to serve incompatible platforms.

Lesson 1 • Documentation Site Architecture

Plans the information architecture of a design system documentation site. Ensures users can find components, guidelines, and principles quickly.

Lesson 2 • Code and Design Parity in Docs

Aligns design tool components with coded examples in documentation. Prevents drift between what designers see and what engineers implement.

Lesson 3 • Pattern Documentation Templates

Provides reusable templates for documenting components, patterns, and foundations. Speeds up documentation and ensures consistent coverage.

Lesson 4 • Writing Effective Usage Guidelines

Teaches how to write do/don't guidance, usage context, and rationale for components. Reduces misuse and support burden on the system team.

Lesson 1 • Decision-Making Frameworks

Provides structured approaches for resolving design disagreements and prioritising system work. Reduces bottlenecks and subjective debates.

Lesson 2 • Versioning and Breaking Changes

Applies semantic versioning principles to design system releases. Teaches students to communicate breaking changes without disrupting consuming teams.

Lesson 3 • Scaling Governance Across Teams

Addresses governance challenges that emerge as organisations grow and add product lines. Prepares students for enterprise-scale system management.

Lesson 4 • Contribution Workflows and Criteria

Defines how new components and patterns enter the system through a structured process. Prevents ad-hoc additions that degrade system quality.

Lesson 1 • Design System Metrics and KPIs

Identifies quantitative and qualitative metrics that reflect system health and adoption. Gives students data to justify investment and guide priorities.

Lesson 2 • Long-Term System Health Practices

Establishes recurring rituals and reviews that keep the system relevant over time. Synthesises all course concepts into a sustainable operating model.

Lesson 3 • System Roadmap Planning

Builds a prioritised roadmap that balances new features, maintenance, and debt reduction. Aligns system work with product and business cycles.

Lesson 4 • Deprecation and Migration Strategies

Covers how to retire outdated components and guide teams through migration. Prevents legacy patterns from undermining system consistency.