Question 1

What is a design system?

Accepted Answer

A design system is a shared set of reusable components, styles, and rules — colours, spacing, buttons, forms — that keeps a product visually consistent and faster to build. It is the single source of truth for how your interface looks and behaves.

Question 2

Does my startup need a design system?

Accepted Answer

Only once inconsistency starts costing real time, and not before. For a pre-product startup still changing direction weekly, a heavy design system is premature overhead.

Question 3

How do I start a design system?

Accepted Answer

Start lightweight: define colour and spacing tokens, document three to five of your most-reused components, and let the system grow as patterns repeat and the product stabilises.

Question 4

What is the difference between a component library and a design system?

Accepted Answer

A component library is the set of reusable UI parts; a design system adds the styles, tokens, and rules for when and how to use them, plus the documentation that ties it together.