Accurately estimating the time needed to build a design system can be overwhelming, especially when juggling multiple tasks and deadlines. Therefore, understanding how to estimate creating a design system in hours is crucial for ensuring efficiency and meeting the project goals.
A design system is a comprehensive set of standards, components, and documentation that ensure consistency in a product’s design and development process. Hence, a design system may include design principles, pattern libraries, design tokens, and documentation.
Estimating a design system would be beneficial to ensure the efficiency of workflow. Moreover, it could help the clients to understand the project’s process and costs.
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When considering how to estimate creating a design system in hours, it’s important to break down the process into manageable tasks. Follow the key steps below to break down your estimation process.
Determining the scope of the design system is essential to estimate the necessary amount of time. This step means to be planning and researching your project. Thus, you must break down your plan as detailed as possible. You may ask several questions, as follows, to help you define the scope neatly.
A simple design with basic components, such as design tokens and pattern libraries, may require only 40-80 hours. Meanwhile, complicated design systems involve more planning time, which ranges from 200 to 300 hours.
Remember to add extra estimation for unexpected circumstances. It is better to include time buffers to handle unforeseen issues and risks. Moreover, you should think about a contingency plan.
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After identifying the scope, you can develop the design systems goals and approaches. This step is where you execute the “How to estimate creating a design system in hours” lesson.
For instance, you may use a bottom-up approach to determine estimation. In this approach, you start from the smallest tasks to define the project’s time and costs. This method allows you to produce an accurate estimate because you must record every detail.
You can include the clients in the project’s completion process. If they just need you to apply reusable UI components, you can spend around 20-50 hours to finish them.
However, suppose they want complex documentation, like usage guidelines, code snippets, and accessibility standards. For this condition, you may need to allocate 100-150 hours.
The time required to create a design system depends heavily on the team’s skill level and familiarity with the project. Experienced teams might complete tasks faster, while less experienced teams may need additional time for learning and revisions. Additionally, the number of teams affects the performance.
Testing and feedback step is also crucial in how to estimate creating a design system in hours. This phase may involve testing the usability of the design system’s components and guidelines. You may allocate time for these things below.
For small projects, it may take 10 to 30 hours for stakeholder alignment. However, larger projects can escalate to 40-80 hours due to numerous meetings, revisions, and final approvals.
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Let’s review an example of the common tasks in developing a design system and their estimated hours below.
| Task | Estimated Hours | Description |
| Component design | 20-400 hours | Creating core components, like grids, buttons, and forms. |
| Pattern library | 30-100 hours | Developing larger UI components, such as navigation menus, modals, and card layouts. |
| Designing Design Tokens | 15-30 hours | Defining typography and color scheme for brand identity. |
| Documentation | 20-60 hours | Creating clear guidelines for the use of the design system. |
| Developer handover | 10-20 hours | Making sure that the implementation goes well for the developer. |
The tasks above are a few things you might encounter in your work. Also, you might add extra tasks for the details, like feedback and revisions. Then, you can adjust the estimation according to your needs.
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A design system streamlines projects by providing consistent UI components and design tokens, like fonts and color schemes. Therefore, it can enhance efficiency and ensure smoother collaboration between teams.
For that reason, understanding how to estimate creating a design system in hours ensures your project stays on track while meeting both quality and timeline expectations.
