Introduction
When working on a recent take-home project, I was tasked with building a page navigation UI with drag and drop, inline add buttons, and contextual menus. Instead of rushing to just meet the functional requirements, I decided to treat it like the foundation of a design system.
I asked myself:
- How reusable are these components?
- Are they accessible by default?
- Will they scale with consistency across a real product?
In this article, I’ll walk through how I approached this project with a design system mindset. From tokens and foundations to testing and documentation, this mindset helped me build faster, more confidently, and with a higher standard of quality.
1. Building Foundations First: From Tokens to Buttons
Before writing any component logic, I started with design tokens. I broke down the design into structured values:
- Text colors, background layers, surface tones
- Icon colors and interaction states (hover, focus, active)
- Border radius, z-index, shadows, and spacing
Establishing these early allowed every component to be visually consistent and easier to maintain. I didn’t need to guess colors or spacing since they were already defined.
Next, I tackled icons. Icons are a critical part of the interface. They give users immediate visual context. By organizing and documenting them early, I avoided inconsistencies and made the UI easier to scale.
Then came the buttons. Buttons are one of the most reused and visible components in any system. I created well-defined variants, sizes, and interaction states to ensure they could be used confidently across the project.
With tokens, icons, and buttons in place, I had a strong foundation to build more complex interactive components while reducing errors and increasing speed.
2. Designing for Accessibility, Always
One thing I always keep in mind when building any component is keyboard navigation.
Even though the prompt didn’t explicitly ask for accessibility, I built every component to be fully usable via keyboard:
- Buttons and dropdowns could be focused and triggered
- Items inside menus were navigable using arrow keys
- Drag and drop interactions had visible focus and feedback
By doing this from the beginning, I wasn’t adding accessibility later. I was building accessibly from the start.
3. Motion, Feedback, and User Experience
Beyond consistency, I focused deeply on motion and interaction.
- Animations were designed to guide and enhance the experience. The way dropdowns opened, the direction, the easing — everything contributed to smoother UX.
- When dragging an item, buttons subtly created space to show possible drop targets.
- After dropping, a brief highlight signaled the action was complete. This helped users understand the result of their interactions.
Motion was not just decoration. It was a way to communicate clearly and make the interface feel alive.
Combined with design tokens, this attention to motion kept the experience smooth, expressive, and consistent across multiple components.
4. Documentation: The Key to Adoption and Consistency
A design system is only useful if people understand how to use it. That’s why I treated documentation as a first-class priority.
I used Storybook to document:
- Every button variant and size
- Icon options with names and use cases
- Examples of dropdowns, drag and drop behavior, and page states
Good documentation ensures developers don’t reinvent the wheel. It also helps designers validate behavior in real contexts. Even something as simple as documenting icons made the system more discoverable and reliable.
5. Testing for Reliability, Speed, and Confidence
Since I was treating this like a proper design system, tests were essential.
- I used Chromatic for visual and interaction testing. It helped catch regressions and inconsistent patterns directly in the CI pipeline.
- TypeScript checks ensured every commit produced a stable build.
- Lint rules helped maintain code quality and prevent technical debt.
These tests didn’t slow me down. They helped me move faster. With only a weekend to complete the project, knowing I had these safety nets allowed me to develop with confidence and speed.
Final Thoughts
This wasn’t just a take-home assignment. It was an opportunity to build something with intention and long-term value.
By approaching the work with a design system mindset — focusing on reusability, accessibility, tokens, motion, documentation, and testing — I created more than just a UI. I created a foundation that can scale.
Design systems aren’t about limitation. They’re about unlocking creativity, increasing speed, and raising the quality bar for the whole product.
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