Frontend software engineers are pivotal in shaping design systems. They prepare and maintain vital elements such as coding style guides, component libraries, and design tokens to ensure consistency and efficiency in design.
The Role of Coding Style Guides
Coding style guides are an integral part of a design system, and frontend developers are responsible for implementing and adhering to these guides. These guides standardize coding practices to maintain a coherent codebase, facilitate easier collaboration among team members, and improve code quality for scalability and maintainability. For instance, methodologies like BEM, Atomic Design, and SMACSS provide structured ways to manage HTML and CSS. They cover naming conventions, file structuring, and rules for CSS property use.
Examples of Code Structuring Methodologies:
- BEM (Block Element Modifier): Helps in creating scalable and reusable component styles.
- Example:
.card--featuredrepresents a modifier for a particular block or component.
- Example:
- Atomic Design: Encourages designers to think of user interfaces as hierarchical components, from atoms to templates.
- SMACSS: Outlines a flexible guide to developing scalable and modular CSS.
Coding style guides often extend to more granular standards, including naming, indentation, formatting, and commenting, ensuring overall code consistency.
Understanding Design Tokens
Frontend developers leverage design tokens to maintain a consistent design language across different projects within an organization. Design tokens act as a central source of truth for design properties like colors, typography, and spacing. The responsibility of maintaining tokens ensures that changes in design elements are updated globally.
Design Token Implementation:
- $color-primary: A Sass variable that might hold a primary brand color.
- –color-background: A CSS custom property (variable) used for background colors throughout a project.
Modern projects may define tokens in various formats such as Sass, CSS custom properties, JSON, or YAML based on the project's needs.
Component Libraries Contribution
The creation and maintenance of component libraries are a substantial part of frontend developers' roles. These libraries house reusable UI elements like buttons and forms, facilitating efficiency.
Component Usage Example:
<Button variant="primary">
Click Me
</Button>
This React button component could be a part of the library, using design tokens and adhering to the defined coding style guide. The encapsulated nature of components in libraries like React makes them portable and manageable across different projects.
The Utilization of Kendo UI in Design Systems
Kendo UI is mentioned as a tool that can assist in building design systems. Frontend developers can use ThemeBuilder to customize this library according to their needs, defining tokens and creating components that align with their organization’s style.
Kendo UI Features:
- ThemeBuilder: Allows customization of themes aligning with the brand.
- Component Customization: Facilitates the creation of UI components and styles that fit within the brand guidelines.
Wrap-up and Future Discussions
In summary, frontend developers are essential in the development and upkeep of design systems through coding style guides, design tokens, and component libraries. However, this is not the exhaustive list of considerations. Accessibility, performance optimization, and documentation are also key factors to consider, which will be subjects for future discussions.
In a subsequent article, we will delve deeper into other critical factors such as how elements within a design system should be accessible, performance-optimized, and well-documented, and how these contribute further to the efficiency and effectiveness of design systems.
Tags: #FrontendDevelopment, #DesignSystems, #ComponentLibraries, #CodingStyleGuides, #DesignTokens
https://www.telerik.com/blogs/role-frontend-engineers-design-systems-part-1