With the relentless treadmill of disruption, the potential of media and entertainment companies to understand their customer’s digital consumption behaviour today is greater than at any time in history.
Among the digital devices, mobile devices have taken over as the preferred medium of consuming content online. The smartphone market has seen unprecedented growth in the last 5 years. Smartphone devices across the globe grew at a CAGR of 17% as compared to 9.5% growth in all mobile devices. Smartphones crossed 2 billion marks in 2014 and are expected to reach 4.6 billion by 2019.
This led to an increase in the number of devices capable of supporting digital media in tandem. Billions of screens and increasing internet access speed provided consumers with an option to access the media content of their choice anytime, anywhere.
Consumers are shifting their preferences towards digital media consumption as compared to traditional forms of media such as TV, print press, and radio. People are spending more time on digital forms of media rather than traditional mediums. This increase is mainly coming by cannibalizing traditional advertising mediums.
The increasing popularity of digital media has provided for a paradigm shift in global advertising spends. Marketers who are seeking to monetize content and capture growth are following the changing trend and increasingly allocating their budget to digital mediums. Spending on digital media as a percentage of total advertising spend has increased from 21% in 2010 to 28% in 2015 and is further expected to reach 36% by 2020.
Gen Z’s digital media consumption trends
Generation Z represents 1.8 billion people or 24% of the world population. Having an invigoratingly different attitude, Gen Z has a tremendous effect on the overall perception and digital media consumption.
They prove to be more entrepreneurial; growing up with search engines they like to discover content for themselves. They also like to be involved in the process, contribute to the solution and be more absorbed in experiences.
Though a wide range of digital consumption, the Gen Z capture insights from an array of sources. Translating these resources into viable products, services and business models will go a long way in defining the leaders of today and the leaders of tomorrow
Billion screens into digital consumption powerhouse
With a population of more than 1.3 billion and around 570 million internet subscribers, India has the world’s second-highest number of internet users after China; growing at a rate of 13% annually. India to overtake the US on time spent on digital videos. The global streaming platforms are looking to capitalize on the country’s fast-growing digital content consumption. The impressive scale of the market and a liberal foreign investment environment are strategically appealing to investors.
India is among the top five markets in the world based on the number of users for online and mobile gaming; with more than 90% of millennials preferring smartphones over gaming PCs and other devices. Besides, India consumes the highest data per user in the world. In 2019, adults in India, on an average spend 29.9% of their total daily media time on digital. In a recent report, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India estimated the digital consumption of data to be around 7.69 gigabytes per month.
Leap through these Digital Challenges
India offers global investors enormous opportunities for growth. However, there also are several persistent challenges to consider before making the leap. Increasing use of digital media has accelerated video consumption, but it also has increased the piracy threat. In fact, growing piracy is likely to restrict the full monetization of content. As well as large-scale acceptance of subscription video on demand in India.
Digital advertising, a top-30 focus area of the industry, has lost as much as US$8 billion in revenues. Half of the loss incurs from “nonhuman traffic” — fake advertising impressions; that are neither generated by genuine advertisers nor received by actual consumers. The other half derives from a variety of factors such as ad-blocking and content infringements, like the sharing of passwords.
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Design Systems: Building and Maintaining Consistent UI/UX
In the world of product design, consistency is the cornerstone of delivering a seamless user experience. As digital products evolve and scale, the challenge of maintaining design consistency across multiple platforms, teams, and touchpoints becomes more complex. This is where design systems come in. A design system is a comprehensive set of guidelines, components, and tools that help designers and developers create a consistent and cohesive user interface (UI) and user experience (UX). From a designer’s perspective, building and maintaining a design system requires a strategic approach to ensure scalability, flexibility, and alignment with business goals.
Design systems are more than just style guides or pattern libraries. They offer a unified language for design and development, bridging the gap between creativity and functionality. Here are a few reasons why they are critical:
Consistency Across Products
One of the primary goals of a design system is to ensure uniformity across different platforms and devices. When users interact with a product, whether on a website or a mobile app, they expect a consistent experience. A well-implemented design system ensures that visual elements, interactions, and behaviors are aligned, offering a familiar and intuitive experience for users.
2. Faster Iteration
With a design system in place, teams can reuse components and patterns rather than reinventing the wheel for each new feature. This speeds up the design and development process, allowing teams to focus on solving new problems instead of reworking existing designs. For designers, it means less time spent on repetitive tasks and more time dedicated to innovation.
3. Scalability
As products grow and new features are added, maintaining a coherent UI/UX without a design system can become chaotic. A design system provides a scalable framework, enabling teams to add new elements or modules without compromising the overall consistency of the product.
4. Improved Collaboration
A design system fosters collaboration between designers, developers, and other stakeholders by providing a shared language and reference point. This ensures that design decisions are communicated effectively, reducing friction and misunderstandings between teams.
Building a Design System: A Designer’s Perspective
Designing a system from scratch can seem like a daunting task, but with a clear roadmap and understanding of core principles, it becomes a powerful tool for creating scalable and user-centered products.
1. Define the Core Principles
Before diving into visual components, it’s essential to establish the core principles of your design system. These principles serve as the foundation and guide decision-making throughout the process. Ask yourself:
• What are the key values of your brand?
• How should the design reflect the needs and emotions of users?
• What goals are you trying to achieve with your design system (e.g., accessibility, flexibility, innovation)?
For instance, if accessibility is a top priority, you’ll need to ensure that your design system accommodates users with different abilities, by providing color contrast guidelines, clear typographic hierarchies, and accessible components.
2. Create a Unified Visual Language
Once the principles are established, the next step is creating a cohesive visual language. This includes defining elements such as:
• Color Palette: A well-structured color palette ensures harmony across different UI components. It’s crucial to include primary, secondary, and accent colors, along with usage guidelines to avoid inconsistency.
• Typography: Define a typography system that establishes hierarchies and clarity, including font styles, sizes, line heights, and spacing. Consistent typography helps users navigate content effortlessly.
• Spacing and Grids: An established grid system ensures a balanced layout and harmony between different UI elements. Proper spacing guidelines prevent crowded or misaligned components.
• Iconography and Illustrations: Design guidelines for icons and illustrations help maintain visual consistency. Icons should follow a standard style (outlined, filled) and size, ensuring they align with the overall visual language.
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Iconography and Illustrations: Design guidelines for icons and illustrations help maintain visual consistency. Icons should follow a standard style (outlined, filled) and size, ensuring they align with the overall visual language.
A design system is incomplete without reusable UI components. These components include buttons, forms, modals, and navigation elements that can be used across various features and pages. Each component should be:
• Modular: Components should be flexible and adaptable for different contexts. For example, a button should have variations for different states (hover, active, disabled) and types (primary, secondary, destructive).
• Documented: Each component needs comprehensive documentation that explains how it should be used, its variants, and the rules governing its application. This ensures consistency when different team members use the same component.
4. Implement Accessibility Guidelines
Accessibility should be at the forefront of every design system. As a designer, consider:
• Color Contrast: Ensure sufficient contrast between text and background for readability.
• Keyboard Navigation: Ensure that interactive components are navigable via keyboard for users who rely on keyboard shortcuts.
• Responsive Design: Components should be responsive, adapting seamlessly across different screen sizes and devices.
• Assistive Technologies: Design components should be compatible with screen readers and other assistive technologies to provide an inclusive experience.
Maintaining a Design System: Evolving with the Product
Once a design system is in place, the work doesn’t stop there. Maintaining it requires ongoing effort as the product evolves and new design challenges emerge. Here’s how designers can ensure the design system remains relevant and effective:
1. Regular Audits and Updates
A design system should be treated as a living document that evolves with the product. Regular audits are necessary to identify outdated or unused components. Designers should collaborate with developers to ensure new features are aligned with the existing design system, and updates should be documented to avoid fragmentation.
2. Version Control and Documentation
Version control is essential for keeping track of changes in the design system. Documenting why and how changes are made ensures that the design system grows in an organized manner. It also helps onboard new team members quickly, as they can reference updated guidelines.
3. Foster Collaboration Across Teams
Designers need to maintain an open line of communication with developers and other teams using the design system. Tools like Figma, Sketch, and Zeplin allow designers to share components and guidelines in real-time, fostering collaboration and ensuring that everyone is aligned.
Some well-known examples of design systems that have set benchmarks in the industry:
Overview: Google’s Material Design is one of the most comprehensive design systems available. It provides guidelines on how to create visual, motion, and interaction design across platforms and devices. Material Design is known for its grid-based layouts, responsive animations, and depth effects like shadows and lighting.
Features:
Comprehensive color palettes, typography, and iconography.
Overview: Salesforce’s Lightning Design System provides a comprehensive library of UI components and resources to help build applications on the Salesforce platform. It ensures a consistent experience across Salesforce products and enables developers to create custom apps easily.
Features:
Ready-to-use components, design tokens, and code snippets.
Comprehensive accessibility guidelines to ensure inclusivity.
Detailed documentation for developers to integrate components into Salesforce applications.
Overview: Fluent Design is Microsoft’s design system, created to provide an engaging and scalable UI across all Microsoft products. It is heavily focused on interaction, animation, and motion while ensuring accessibility across various device ecosystems.
Features:
Focus on depth, motion, and light to create modern and interactive UIs.
Cross-platform components supporting web, desktop, and mobile applications.
Accessible components with detailed guidelines for developers.
Conclusion
Building and maintaining a design system is an investment that pays off in the long run. It ensures consistency across your product, improves collaboration between teams, and allows for faster iteration and scalability. For designers, a design system is more than a collection of reusable components — it’s a framework that enables you to create user-centric products with confidence and clarity. By embracing modularity, documentation, and accessibility, you’ll ensure that your design system remains a valuable asset as your product grows.
About the Author:
Shristi is a creative professional with a passion for visual storytelling. She recently transitioned from the world of video and motion graphics to the exciting field of product design at Mantra Labs. When she’s not designing, she enjoys watching movies, traveling, and sharing her experiences through vlogs.
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