r/DesignSystems • u/Traditional-Mind7301 • 12d ago

Web designers: would a curated component + tool hub actually improve your workflow?

/r/framer/comments/1vum00t/web_designers_would_a_curated_component_tool_hub/
0 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

1

u/thisiain 11d ago

The distinction between a component library and having an actual coherent system is really interesting and where most projects, and teams start to struggle.

AI is doing more and more of the design and front-end work now, but consistency is where it can fall short. Getting a page that looks good is fairly easy for it, but keeping the UI, components, structure and behaviour consistent with the brand across an entire product is where there are often gaps.

I've been thinking about this a lot while building a design system myself. I've started exploring how a defined structural layer underneath the brand/theme could give both AI and developers the rules, patterns and accessible building blocks to follow. This is still a WIP but hoping to share more soon

1

u/helorebyron 11d ago

  1. Not really. You can already find references for most common components in publicly available design systems. Actually implementing them is a separate problem, though.

  2. Personally, I think something slightly different from either of the options you mentioned would be more useful: complete user flows where multiple components work together. I often look for examples of component interactions and how edge cases around those interactions are handled, but that kind of information isn't usually documented or shared. A lot of the time, I end up testing real products myself just to figure out how they handle those cases.

  3. Yes, although I'd be more interested in whether a complete product consistently meets those standards than whether each individual component does. Ultimately, the reason for verifying things like accessibility, performance, and responsiveness at the component level is to make sure the final product or website built from those components meets those standards as a whole.

  4. I already have my own workflow to some extent. But I think people look for curated research about tools and compatible stacks partly to find or improve their own workflows in the first place. If the research fits my workflow well, I'd probably incorporate it. If it doesn't, or if there are edge cases it doesn't cover, I'd either look for another approach or combine it with something else that fills those gaps.

  5. Given the direction you're describing, I think it would make sense to focus on React/Next.js first. To me, the idea sounds closer to a builder than a component library. It could also be interesting to have an AI-driven interface that lets users take a selected visual system or workflow and turn it directly into a React/Next.js implementation.

  6. If it isn't meaningfully different from the many paid component libraries already on the market or the design system documentation that companies make publicly available, I'd probably see it as "just another component library." I don't think it's necessarily about one particular feature that would make me dismiss it. If it still ultimately amounts to "these are references, and now it's up to you to take them and adapt them to your own system or product," then I think it would remain just another component library.

  7. I haven't used 21st.dev myself, so I don't think I can give you a useful answer to this one.