Streamlining Your Design System: A Guide to Tokens and Naming Conventions
Streamlining Your Design System: A Guide to Tokens and Naming Conventions
Tokens and naming conventions are fundamental to any effective design system, as they simplify workflows, ensure consistency, and enable seamless collaboration between designers and developers.
In the fast-paced world of digital product development, consistency is king. Design systems ensure a cohesive user experience across platforms and teams. At the heart of any robust design system lie tokens and naming conventions. These foundational elements bring order and scalability to your designs while empowering developers and designers to collaborate seamlessly.
What Are Design Tokens?
Design tokens are the building blocks of a design system. They represent the smallest unit of a design decision — a single source of truth for values such as color, typography, spacing, and more. Tokens bridge the gap between design and code by ensuring that the same design value can be used consistently across all platforms and technologies.
For example:
Color Tokens:
primary-color,secondary-color,error-color- These represent specific colors in the design system, e.g.,primary-colorfor brand colors,secondary-colorfor complementary accents, anderror-colorfor error states.Typography Tokens:
font-heading-lg,font-body-sm- These are text styles with specific sizes and weights, e.g.,font-heading-lgfor large headlines andfont-body-smfor small body text.Spacing Tokens:
spacing-xs,spacing-md- These define consistent spacing units, withspacing-xsbeing extra small (e.g., 4px) andspacing-mdbeing medium (e.g., 16px).
Understanding the Naming Convention Order
Tokens follow a hierarchical naming structure, which ensures clarity and modularity:
Category: The broad grouping, such as
color,typography, orspacing.Subcategory: Further refines the group, such as
primary,heading, orxs.Property/State: Adds specific details, like
background,lg, orhover.
Tokens are platform-agnostic and can be transformed into formats that work for iOS, Android, web, and for print.
Why Naming Conventions Matter
Naming conventions are the backbone for organizing and managing your design system effectively. By providing clarity and consistency, they help teams navigate and implement design elements without confusion. This, in turn, fosters collaboration and reduces time spent on redundant explanations or corrections.
A well-thought-out naming convention ensures that your design tokens are:
Scalable
Names should accommodate future growth in the design system.Descriptive
Names should communicate the purpose of the token.Consistent
A unified naming structure reduces confusion and enhances usability.Cross-functional
Names should be easily understood by both designers and developers.
Poor naming conventions can lead to ambiguity and inefficiency. For example, naming a token red is too vague. Instead, something like alert-error-background is far more descriptive and contextually meaningful.
Streamlining Your Design System: A Guide to Tokens and Naming Conventions
Tokens and naming conventions are fundamental to any effective design system, as they simplify workflows, ensure consistency, and enable seamless collaboration between designers and developers.
By Wicar Akhtar
In the fast-paced world of digital product development, consistency is king. Design systems ensure a cohesive user experience across platforms and teams. At the heart of any robust design system lie tokens and naming conventions. These foundational elements bring order and scalability to your designs while empowering developers and designers to collaborate seamlessly.
What Are Design Tokens?
Design tokens are the building blocks of a design system. They represent the smallest unit of a design decision — a single source of truth for values such as color, typography, spacing, and more. Tokens bridge the gap between design and code by ensuring that the same design value can be used consistently across all platforms and technologies.
For example:
Color Tokens:
primary-color,secondary-color,error-color- These represent specific colors in the design system, e.g.,primary-colorfor brand colors,secondary-colorfor complementary accents, anderror-colorfor error states.Typography Tokens:
font-heading-lg,font-body-sm- These are text styles with specific sizes and weights, e.g.,font-heading-lgfor large headlines andfont-body-smfor small body text.Spacing Tokens:
spacing-xs,spacing-md- These define consistent spacing units, withspacing-xsbeing extra small (e.g., 4px) andspacing-mdbeing medium (e.g., 16px).
Understanding the Naming Convention Order
Tokens follow a hierarchical naming structure, which ensures clarity and modularity:
Category: The broad grouping, such as
color,typography, orspacing.Subcategory: Further refines the group, such as
primary,heading, orxs.Property/State: Adds specific details, like
background,lg, orhover.
Tokens are platform-agnostic and can be transformed into formats that work for iOS, Android, web, and for print.
Why Naming Conventions Matter
Naming conventions are the backbone for organizing and managing your design system effectively. By providing clarity and consistency, they help teams navigate and implement design elements without confusion. This, in turn, fosters collaboration and reduces time spent on redundant explanations or corrections.
A well-thought-out naming convention ensures that your design tokens are:
Scalable
Names should accommodate future growth in the design system.Descriptive
Names should communicate the purpose of the token.Consistent
A unified naming structure reduces confusion and enhances usability.Cross-functional
Names should be easily understood by both designers and developers.
Poor naming conventions can lead to ambiguity and inefficiency. For example, naming a token red is too vague. Instead, something like alert-error-background is far more descriptive and contextually meaningful.