The initial pilot was conducted in the spring of 2021 and most invitations went out via LinkedIn and Reddit. Over the course of 2 weeks, a total of 50 participants completed the first survey. While many valuable insights could be gained, it might be even more interesting to see how the results will develop over time, as I plan to include some of the same questions again in subsequent surveys.
First, let's take a look at who answered the call. Of the 50 participants, 54% identified as designers, 22% as front-end developers, and 12% selected product management and other, respectively. To better understand the participants' profiles, I also asked for the role titles they would give themselves if they were to choose freely. A few of the most interesting examples provided included: Design Systems Technologist, Empath, Design Librarian, UX Developer, Design System Advocate, and Product Landscaper.
(By the way, you can also download the results in the form of a summarized PDF report or as a CSV file.)
Where would you put yourself on the following spectrum?
0: đź’» Pure coder
8: 🎨 Pure designer
When asked to place themselves on a scale from Developer (0) to Designer (8), over 50% of all participants identified as all-rounders (3, 4, or 5). The most common answer was (4), i.e., the exact center of the range. It remains to be seen whether the continued adoption of new cross-functional product development paradigms—such as design systems and design tokens—will further reinforce this tendency in the future. In fact, there was already a strong correlation between all-rounders and participants who stated to be very familiar with design systems (67% all-rounders) and design tokens (81% all-rounders).
How familiar would you say you are with the concepts listed below?
0: 🤷 Never heard of it before
4: đź’ˇ Very familiar with the concept
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Design Languages | 4.1% | 10.2% | 18.4% | 32.7% | 34.7% |
| Design Patterns | 2% | 6% | 28% | 22% | 42% |
| Design Debt | 44% | 18% | 14% | 8% | 16% |
| DesignOps | 34% | 22% | 20% | 10% | 14% |
| Design Tokens | 32% | 18% | 18% | 10% | 22% |
| Atomic Design | 32% | 8% | 8% | 14% | 38% |
| Design Systems | 8% | 8% | 10% | 32% | 42% |
| Git, Version Control | 8.3% | 4.2% | 10.4% | 27.1% | 50% |
| Continuous Integration & Delivery | 12% | 12% | 12% | 20% | 44% |
Regarding the viability of design systems in relation to organizational size, 55% of designers and 63% of front-end developers stated that establishing a design system can—potentially—already make sense in the context of very small organizations (1-3 design/development resources). With the next higher category (4-5) included, the number increases to 70%. By leaving out the responses of participants with little design system experience, we arrive at even 82%. Just 8% of all participants believed that the introduction of a design system only starts to make sense at larger organizations with 11+ or 21+ resources.
It was surprising to see how much of a shift has happened on the tooling front of product development. When asked for their favorite tools around design systems, not even a single participant mentioned one of the traditional design programs Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator—even though multiple entries were allowed. By far the most popular tool was Figma with 14 mentions, followed by Adobe XD and Sketch which were both mentioned 6 times. Various front-end frameworks were also relatively popular and scored 7 mentions (combined). Among the documentation and organization tools, Storybook (3), Notion (4), and Confluence (3) scored highest. Visual Studio emerged as the most frequently mentioned code editor with 4 mentions in total.
What are your favorite tools or techniques in the context of Design Systems?
These may include code or text editors, documentation solutions, design tools, front-end frameworks, or specific approaches and methodologies.
While this first Lean Design System Survey had a limited scope, it was already a very insightful experience. All findings from this iteration will be used to optimize the questions of the next survey. The best way to stay up-to-date is to follow Lean Design System on Twitter: leandesignsys. Finally, I would like to thank all participants for taking their time—it truly went a long way towards refining this project! Cheers, and I hope to see you around for the next survey.