Elevating Design Flexibility and Efficiency with Kiwi Design System

Background

We created Kiwi Design System to provide a versatile and comprehensive design toolkit suitable for any business or project requirement. Recognizing the diverse needs of the design community, from freelancers to large design teams, Kiwi was crafted to offer extensive customization capabilities, ease of use, and robustness in design consistency.

Key Issues and Challenges

Design teams and freelancers often face challenges related to maintaining consistency across projects, managing time efficiently, and adapting designs to fit various branding guidelines. The lack of a flexible and comprehensive design system can lead to increased costs and extended project timelines.

Discoveries

Based on our personal experience with multiple freelance projects, we found a significant demand for a design system that is not only comprehensive and customizable but also easy to adapt and integrate across various platforms and projects. Again and again, we were faced with the need for a system that could effortlessly switch between themes and customize components on a granular level.

Strategy

The strategy for Kiwi Design System focused on three key areas: versatility, ease of use, and comprehensive documentation. The goal was to create a system that could easily integrate into any project, support diverse branding requirements, and reduce design and development time.

Design

• Themes to Match Any Brand: Kiwi includes eight themes—Basic, Light, Dark, and five vivid colors, allowing users to seamlessly align the design with brand identity.
• Master Components: Utilizing nested components, Kiwi allows any changes made to master components to cascade through all variants, ensuring consistency and ease of updates

• Design Blocks: Comprehensive blocks covering everything from landing pages to complex application interfaces provide a solid foundation for rapid project deployment.

Feedback

Continuous user feedback has been integral to refining Kiwi. Users have praised the system’s flexibility and the ease with which they can adapt it to their needs. Feedback loops are maintained through regular surveys and a dedicated channel for user suggestions.

Implementation

Kiwi was implemented with a detailed documentation guide and an accessible live playground file that users can interact with to test different themes and components before implementation.

See how Kiwi was build  in a detailed article complete with Playground file. 

System Results

Kiwi’s structure has streamlined design processes significantly, enabling users to achieve high levels of design consistency and faster turnaround times for projects. The organized and editable nature of the system has reduced the complexity traditionally associated with customizing design systems.

User Results

Users report substantial time savings and increased productivity. Freelancers and design teams have successfully used Kiwi to scale their design efforts across multiple projects without sacrificing quality or brand alignment.

Future Considerations

As we project the trajectory of the Kiwi Design System, our future considerations emphasize a strategic transition toward a tool-agnostic platform and the expansive utilization of design tokens. This approach not only aligns with our goal to enhance adaptability and efficiency across various design platforms but also addresses the evolving needs of a diverse user base.

Tool-Agnostic Development:

Our aim is to develop Kiwi into a system that operates independently of specific design tools such as Figma, Adobe XD, or Sketch. This tool-agnostic approach will involve:

• Developing a Core Framework: We plan to build a core framework that abstracts common functionalities and design elements away from tool-specific features. This framework will serve as the backbone of Kiwi, ensuring that its foundational design principles are maintainable across any design tool.
• Plugin and API Integration: By developing plugins and APIs for popular design tools, Kiwi can be seamlessly integrated into any environment without losing its core functionalities. This will allow users to continue working with their tool of choice while benefiting from Kiwi’s capabilities.
• Customizable Tool Settings: Implementation of customizable settings within Kiwi will enable users to define how they interact with the design system based on the tool they are using. This flexibility will ensure that Kiwi remains intuitive and efficient regardless of the software environment.

Expansion of Design Tokens:

Design tokens are integral to our strategy for ensuring consistency and scalability. We plan to enhance the use of design tokens within Kiwi by:

• Extensive Token Libraries: Developing extensive libraries of design tokens that encompass all aspects of design such as colors, typography, spacing, and interactive states. These libraries will be accessible and editable through a centralized management system.
• Dynamic Token Application: Introducing capabilities for dynamic token application where design changes can be propagated in real-time across all projects using Kiwi. This ensures that any updates or brand adjustments are instantly reflected without manual intervention.
• Integration with Development Workflows: Strengthening the integration of design tokens with development workflows to streamline the transition from design to development. This includes improving the export capabilities of tokens into formats that are readily usable by front-end frameworks and other development environments.

‍

‍