Establishing foundations
Foundations establish the base layer of your system. They cover tokens, naming, accessibility, and testing practices that make sure that everything built is consistent and scalable. Without strong foundations, components become fragmented and hard to evolve. This strategy ensures the basics are solid before you build higher-level patterns or roll out changes across teams. Use it early and revisit it whenever standards or tokens need rework.
Token naming and validation can be automated to catch inconsistencies, freeing you to focus on the semantic decisions that matter.
Start with an audit
Capture what already exists across design and code. Use this evidence before making any structural decisions.
Create naming standards
Decide how tokens are structured and layered. If working across brands, consolidate first. Validate naming with collaborative exercises.
Token Naming Standards
Define how design tokens are structured and layered across your system
Cross-Brand Consolidation
Reduce duplication while supporting visual variation across multiple brands
Match That Token
Check whether your token names make sense in real team workflows
Name That Icon
Test whether your icon names match how people naturally search for them
Set up token management
Define how tokens are versioned, updated, and distributed.
Check accessibility
Ensure tokens support inclusive design before anything is built on top of them.
Test usability
Confirm tokens, components, or templates make sense in real workflows.
Invite critique
Stress test early work and gather feedback across disciplines.
Release foundations
Roll out changes, update guidance, and communicate clearly so teams adopt with confidence.