Large organizations with multi-site online ecosystems can be divided into two categories: those who have design systems and those who wish they did. Before the relatively recent advent of the design system, updating a fleet of websites to ensure consistency in components and brand voice was an extremely time-consuming and tedious process, as it still is for companies and organizations that lack such a system.

If you’re new to the concept of design systems and why they matter to organizations with complex multi-site platforms, I recommend you read this post from last summer entitled Why Design Systems Matter for Large Organizations. In it I discuss many of the challenges inherent in creating and maintaining such systems as well as some of the organizations that Chapter Three has helped in creating new design systems and expanding existing ones.