Design Systems

Managing your design system just got easier

4 min read
Will Fanguy
  •  May 14, 2018
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InVision Design System Manager (DSM) now has several new enhancements that you’ve been asking for. These new additional DSM capabilities will make it even easier to build and maintain your design system and to keep your team and assets in sync as you scale.

DSM has been available in early access since late last year, and many of you have been using it to improve how you collect, manage, and share design components. It has become the source of truth for many teams, allowing you to keep your design language consistent as you ship more digital products and grow your design practice.

Here’s an overview of what you can do now with the new additions:

Enhanced library management

First up is library-level user permissions. This lets you control who has access to each design library, right down to the user level. This means that many product teams can work and collaborate out of a single design system without disrupting the integrity of assets that aren’t relevant to their team.

In addition, you can customize the design system to match your unique structure with new library organization features. You can add new top-level categories (e.g. Atoms, Molecules, Templates) and reorder library elements however you see fit. It’s all about building a system that lets designers operate as quickly and efficiently as possible.

 

Improved documentation and sharing

We added a text editor so you can include more information about each design asset and give everyone more context over what the asset is, how it should be used, and what a developer needs to know to implement it.

Likewise, we added a new full-page design element view. Before, the web view of DSM put all of the details of each design element on the side of the screen, but that wasn’t very easy to use, especially now that descriptions can be added. We heard that you want to see all the critical details of an element at a glance, so we moved the details from a side view to a full page. This way, you also have more space to add other important details and descriptions.

Usability also means making it easy to share exactly the right thing with others. Now you can generate share links for each individual design component. We included this because we know that when it comes to collaborating with engineers, other designers, and your larger product team, it’s useful to have component URL deep links that can be easily and directly shared with a simple copy and paste. Fewer hurdles and less fuss make for happier designers.

Don’t have a DSM account yet? Be sure to sign up for early access today. Current DSM users, sign in below to take these new features for a spin.

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