A Forrester Consulting

Thought Leadership Paper

Commissioned By Adobe

February 2020

Unlocking Design’s Full

Business Potential
Understanding Organizations’ Maturity Around
Design Systems And Articulating The Value
 Table Of Contents
1 Executive Summary
2 As Businesses Prioritize Design,
Companies Struggle To Keep Up
5 Leading Design Teams Have
Invested In Design Systems And
Are More Effective Because Of It
8 Leading Design Teams Reap CX
And Business Benefits
10 Key Recommendations
12 Appendix

ABOUT FORRESTER CONSULTING

Project Director: Forrester Consulting provides independent and objective research-based
Vanessa Fabrizio, consulting to help “leaders” succeed in their organizations. Ranging in scope
Market Impact Consultant from a short strategy session to custom projects, Forrester’s Consulting services
connect you directly with research analysts who apply expert insight to your
Contributing Research:
specific business challenges. For more information, visit forrester.com/consulting.
Forrester’s Customer Experience
Research Group © 2020, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction
is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources.
Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester®,
Technographics®, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar, and Total Economic
Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are
the property of their respective companies. For additional information, go to
forrester.com. [E-45802]
 Executive Summary
Digital innovation has heightened consumers’ expectations. Companies
must create seamless experiences across all of their applications and
touchpoints to compete in today’s digital landscape. This expectation
has evolved the design practice from a “nice-to-have” to a critical
business priority. Companies are investing in design at the highest level
of the business. But even with the increased prioritization of design,
design teams are struggling to keep up, reporting that they lack the
talent and tools needed to compete in the current market.
In November 2019, Adobe commissioned Forrester Consulting to
evaluate design systems — the principles, templates, components,
processes, tools, and people that guide an organization’s design efforts.
Forrester surveyed 385 design professionals at the manager level or
above and conducted a maturity assessment, ranking respondents as
“leading,” “scaling,” or “emerging.” We found that organizations that
take on the risk of investing in design have reaped the benefits. These
organizations are not only more advanced, but they also get products to
market faster and create more consistent customer experiences.

KEY FINDINGS
› Businesses are investing in design. Eighty-six percent of
respondents said their companies have an established design
system, with close to half indicating their systems have been adopted
and they are now focused on growing and scaling it. Not only are
companies investing in design, but design is also influencing the
overall business. Seventy-nine percent of respondents indicated that
their design teams impact strategic decisions.
“Leading” design › Design teams are struggling to keep up with rising expectations.
teams produce a Over a quarter of respondents don’t feel like their design practices
are competitive. As customer expectations continue to evolve, design
more consistent leaders don’t feel like they have the talent or tools to meet their
customer customers’ expectations. As a result, they are struggling to create
consistent customer experiences.
experience.
› “Leading” design teams create more consistent customer
experiences. More mature design teams feel more confident in their
ability to create a consistent customer experience, by a margin of 16
percentage points.
› “Leading” design teams get products to market faster.
Respondents whose companies have more mature design teams
indicate they get products to market faster, by a margin of 35
percentage points.

1 | Unlocking Design’s Full Business Potential

As Businesses Prioritize Design,
Companies Struggle To Keep Up
Design enables businesses to create quality customer experiences
that build brand loyalty. But design has not always been considered a
business priority. In the past, design leaders expressed their struggle
to educate stakeholders on the values of design.1 As studies continued
to prove the business impact of design, attitudes have changed.2
Businesses now recognize that design is not just about how a product
looks; it’s also about how it works. Design delivers value through a
deeper customer understanding and an informed product strategy, and
many businesses are embracing it as a core competency.
Today, many organizations recognize design as a strategic priority:
Businesses know that, to succeed, they need a strong design practice.
In response, organizations are investing in design at the highest
level. Thirty percent of our respondents have design expertise at the
executive level, and 50% at the VP or director level. Beyond this,
companies are investing in people, tools, and processes to keep up
with the demand for design — including design systems. But for some
organizations, it’s starting to feel like a never-ending race.
In surveying 385 design leaders, developers, and user experience
(UX) professionals at enterprises in the US, Canada, England, France,
Germany, and Japan, we found that:
› Design expectations are changing with customer expectations. Figure 1
Customer expectations are growing as digital innovation continues
“What positions do you have within
to encourage consumerism. For companies, it is no longer enough to
the design systems team?”
have a responsive website. To be successful, businesses must create
seamless experiences across websites, mobile apps, and other digital
touchpoints. This requires a design team equipped with the people, 74% Designers
processes, and systems to scale the organization’s design principles,
best practices, and standards across products and experiences.
72% Managers (design/developers)
› To keep up with their competitors, companies are focusing more
on design systems. Companies understand that scaling design
70% Developers
is mandatory for success and have invested in design systems to
advance their practices. Eighty-six percent of respondents indicated
their organizations have an established design system (see Figure 3), 45% Content strategists
and over half have a dedicated team for their design systems. The
majority of design system teams have invested in designer, developer,
and manager roles, and more advanced design system teams have 39% Accessibility experts
invested in content strategists and accessibility experts (see Figure 1).
Base: 307 respondents at the manager level
› Design is a business priority. Not only are companies investing in and above in the design or product side of
design systems, but doing so allows their design teams to impact the business, with multiple people on their
higher-altitude business decisions. How? By freeing up designer design systems team
time to solve new challenges. In fact, 75% of respondents said that Source: A commissioned study conducted by
Forrester Consulting on behalf of Adobe,
their design teams impact strategic decisions, such as what unmet December 2019
customer needs the product should address and how to make more
tactical visual and/or user interface (UI) decisions faster.

2 | Unlocking Design’s Full Business Potential

COMPANIES STRUGGLE TO KEEP UP WITH EXPECTATIONS Figure 2
Design has evolved from a “nice-to-have” to a “must-have”; companies “What parts of your design practice
are now investing in design and using it to influence business strategy. do you think your company could
But as customer expectations continue to rise, design teams still feel improve?”
behind.
› Over a quarter of our respondents do not feel like they have a 47% We lack execution on ideas that
competitive design practice. Design teams lack the technology would enable us to stand out
(43%) and talent (40%) needed to succeed (see Figure 2), with 36%
admitting that it’s difficult to acquire and keep talent in general. This 44% We lack innovative ideas
lack in resources has led design leaders to feel inferior to the market,
with 47% of respondents indicating they lack the execution on ideas
that would enable them to stand out and 44% saying they lack
innovative ideas in general. 43% We lack technology/tools to
enable best-in-class design
Increasing investments in tools and talent would not only equip
organizations with a high-performing design team, but it would also
help design professionals become more innovative — their top barrier 40% We lack the talent/skill sets that
to becoming competitive. would allow us to outperform the market

› Design leaders are struggling to create a consistent customer

experience. Eighty-seven percent of respondents believe that creating 38% We lack a holistic understanding
a consistent customer experience is an important role of design. And of our customers
overall, customer experience is a top priority for companies’ design
practices (see Figure 4). However, there is a misalignment between 22% We lack executive
design teams’ goals and reality: Over a quarter of design professionals support/buy-in
struggle to create a consistent customer experience.
This misalignment arises when product designers invent different 22% We lack monetary/financial
approaches for solving the same problem and proven approaches aren’t resources
well documented for reuse. If a design team wants to create a consistent
experience across products, the company needs to invest in establishing *Base: 101 respondents at the manager level
a design system that all designers use to guide design decisions. and above in the design or product side of
the business, responsible for creating design
systems
Source: A commissioned study conducted by
47% of respondents said they lack the Forrester Consulting on behalf of Adobe,
December 2019
execution of ideas that would enable them to
stand out.

3
Figure 3

46% 40%
We’re seeing We’ve launched
adoption of our our system and
design system and are focused on
are focused on gaining adoption
scaling and amongst product
growing the teams.
system.

Figure 4
“Thinking about your company, overall, how important is the role of design in the following?”
Extremely important Important

Customer satisfaction 62% 27%

Creating a consistent customer experience 51% 36%

Customer engagement 51% 33%

Revenue engagement 51% 35%

Digital customer experience 50% 36%

Brand awareness 48% 35%

Employee satisfaction 47% 36%

Competitive differentiation 42% 40%

Brand preception 42% 41%

Go-to-market strategy 41% 44%

Market leadership 40% 42%

Cost savings 39% 42%

Base: 385 manager level and above in the design or product side of the business, responsible for creating design systems
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Adobe, December 2019

4 | Unlocking Design’s Full Business Potential

Leading Design Teams Have Invested In
Design Systems And Are More Effective
Because Of It
Design teams, as a whole, have made immense progress by making Figure 5
design a business priority that leaders value. However, their mission
is far from complete. Many design teams still struggle to accomplish Maturity Groups
their main priorities. Our study examined design teams across different 47%
maturity levels. We asked design experts a series of questions about
their current design practices, including their design systems. The 33%
questions focused on four primary factors regarding how companies 20%
approach design: 1) the investment in design employees and the
utilization of talent; 2) the technology and tools that equip the design
program; 3) the approaches that support and implement design; and
4) the availability of the company’s design system, both internally and Emerging Scaling Leading
externally. Based on how respondents answered these questions,
we classified them as emerging, scaling, or leading regarding their
Base: 385 respondents at the manager level
design practices. Our findings found the following distribution: 33% of and above in the design or product side of
surveyed companies have emerging design teams, 47% have scaling the business, responsible for creating design
design teams, and 20% have leading design teams, (see Figure 5). systems
Source: A commissioned study conducted by
When comparing responses by maturity group, we focused specifically Forrester Consulting on behalf of Adobe,
on leading and emerging organizations and observed the following key December 2019
differences between the two groups:
› Leading organizations have invested in more advanced resources.
Investing in design pays off: Organizations that have invested more
in design processes, talent, and tools ranked more advanced in our
maturity model. For example, 72% of “leaders” have a dedicated team
72% of “leaders” have
for their design systems, compared to 47% of “emergers.” dedicated design
“Leaders” are also investing in more advanced roles on their design teams for their design
systems teams. Seventy-four percent of “leaders” have a content
strategist on the design system team, compared to 27% of emergers,
systems.
and 72% of “leaders” have an accessibility expert on the team,
compared to 17% of emergers.
And yes, “leaders” have also invested in making their design systems
more robust by including components such as design tokens (72%),
voice and tone features for content design (86%), and motion
guidelines (87%). In comparison, less than half of emerging teams
have invested in these components.

5 | Unlocking Design’s Full Business Potential

› Leading design teams are more collaborative. Design is a team
sport, and leading design teams recognize innovative ideas come
not just from professional designers but by engaging many diverse
perspectives in the design process through methods like design
sprints or cocreation workshops.
The process of building a design system encourages collaboration
across designers as it forces them to discuss and ultimately align on
what their standards should be. A successful design system demands
collaboration among many roles (designers, developers, content
strategists, accessibility experts, and more); simply having a system can
strengthen these partnerships and relationships. “Leaders” have invested
more in design systems and therefore are fostering more collaboration —
75% of respondents at leading design organizations believe their teams
are “very collaborative” compared to only 30% of “emergers.”
› Leading design teams get products to market faster. Compared
to “emergers,” “leaders” see the payoff of their investments, as they
have launched or updated more digital platforms in the last two years
(see Figure 6). Most notably, leading design teams create mobile
applications significantly faster than emerging design teams.
And the leading group is not just faster at creating benchmark platforms
like websites and mobile applications; they are also more likely to have
designed experiences such as voice interactions and internal-facing
experiences like customer support tools.

6
 Figure 6

“What types of digital platforms have you or your team created or

significantly updated (i.e., full redesign) in the last two years?”
(Select all that apply.)

Leading Scaling Emerging

72%
Websites (mobile web) 58%
45%

66%
Websites (desktop) 57% › Leading design
44%
teams are more likely
71% to have
Employee tools 51%
37% created/updated
platforms in the last
65%
Mobile applications 57% two years.
35%

Customer support tools 55%

71%
› Emerging design
27% teams take
56%
significantly longer to
Desktop applications 56% create mobile
37% applications for a
62% phone or tablet
Messaging apps 54% compared to leading
20%
design teams.
71%
Voice interactions 38%
20%

Services, such as shipping processes, 54%

back-office technologies, legal 44%
processes 27%

Base: 385 respondents at the manager level and above in the design or product side of the
business, responsible for creating design systems
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Adobe,
December 2019

7 | Unlocking Design’s Full Business Potential

Leading Design Teams Reap CX And
Business Benefits
While “leaders” take the risk of investing in design and design systems,
their big bet pays off with greater business benefits. For example,
“leaders” reported higher ROI by a margin of 17 percentage points for
every benefit category we asked about in the survey (see Figures 7 and
8). The top benefits of investing in design are:
› Higher customer satisfaction. At the core of design is the customer. “Leaders” reported
This is why design teams are so focused on creating a cohesive a higher ROI on
customer experience. Notably, high customer satisfaction is also
a huge business benefit, providing bottom-line revenue for the design investments
business. Leading design teams are more confident in their customer by a margin of 17
satisfaction and believe that their investments in design systems
have yielded higher customer satisfaction and higher customer percentage points or
engagement (see Figure 7). more.
› A more consistent customer experience. Sixty-one percent of
“leaders” indicated that their investments in design systems have
created a more consistent customer experience (see Figure 7),
solving one of the top challenges discussed by design leaders. While
investments in design systems alone are not the full solution, it is a
great start, as only 45% of “emergers” feel like they have achieved
the same.
› The ability to get products to market faster. In the end, one main
purpose of design is to get great products to market, and “leaders”
feel that their investments in design systems have done just that.
“Leaders” reported their design investments have yielded an increased
development velocity (68%), an increased velocity of design (61%), and
an improved speed-to-market (66%). In comparison, roughly 33% of
“emergers” have accomplished the same (see Figure 8).

8
“Which of the following benefits has your organization seen from its investments in design systems?”
Figure 7

Leading Design Teams Have Higher Customer Satisfaction

Leading Scaling Emerging

62%
Higher customer satisfaction 56%
45%

61%
More consistent customer experience 44%
45%

59%
Higher customer engagement 50%
36%

Figure 8

Leading Design Teams Get Products To Market Faster

Leading Scaling Emerging

68%
Increased development velocity 43%
30%

66%
Improved speed-to-market
42%
31%

Increased development efficiency 65%

48%
35%

Base: 385 respondents at the manager level and above in the design or product side of the business, responsible for creating design systems
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Adobe, December 2019

9
 Key Recommendations
While design teams that invest in design systems help their companies
get products to market faster and achieve higher customer satisfaction,
creating, maintaining, and encouraging adoption of a design system
takes time, resources, and tenacity. But design teams that invest
the time and follow a best-practice approach to create and mature
their systems reap benefits including impact at higher altitudes of
decision making within the business and happier team members.
Insights from this study, coupled with Forrester’s existing research into
how organizations scale their design practices, yielded several key
recommendations:
Prioritize where a design system will have the biggest business
and customer impact. Leading design teams successfully use design
systems to solve the challenge of consistency at scale but are strategic
about where they start. To identify where to invest, ask yourself these
questions:
• Where are the biggest pain points in our customer experience due to
inconsistent experience design?
• What product/design/development teams are receptive to — and
ideally excited about — working in a new way?
• Where do we have the most to gain from getting product updates to
market faster?
• Where do we have the most waste, due to repetitive work, in our
design and development process?
Manage your design system like you would any other product by
establishing a roadmap, specifying what products you’ll focus on first
and a plan for scaling the system to other products and teams over time.
Invest in a core design system team supported by an extended
team of experts and contributors. Piloting a design system to
establish a proof of concept often starts as a side project for one or
two individuals. To fully capitalize on the benefits, design leaders must
invest in dedicated roles to support the system. Start with a small team
of designers and developers who are excited about the system so
they will serve as evangelists, not just creators, of the system. Then,
develop a process for engaging the rest of the experience design
and development ecosystem so everyone has a path to contribute,
ask questions, and even challenge elements in the system. Recruit
an extended team of experts in content strategy, accessibility, and
design research to contribute to the guidelines, components, and other
features of the system. While your core team may remain small, think
of your design system like any other product where employing a cross-
functional, multidisciplinary team is key to attaining desired outcomes.

10 | Unlocking Design’s Full Business Potential

 Measure the business impact of investing in your design system.
While industry studies have proven the business value of design, design
leaders need to be prepared to prove how investments in design have
yielded benefits within their own organizations. If you’re not getting
questions like, “How has investing in a design system helped us make
or save money?” yet, you will. Here are a few tips to measure the
impact of design work:
• Start by aligning on the goals for your design system — like getting
products to market faster or increasing designer happiness. To get to
these goals, apply design methods like jobs-to-be-done and journey
mapping to understand business stakeholders and what drives value
for them — which in some cases may be reducing costs by creating
efficiencies.
• Then, identify the metrics — such as, design time spent per feature or
design employee engagement scores — that gauge whether you’ve
achieved those goals. Uncover where the data lives that you’ll need
to capture each metric and what partners — like analytics or data
science — you’ll need to engage to get access to it.
• Collect baseline data on those metrics and create a dashboard to
regularly report on the status of your design system efforts. A typical
dashboard might track things like projects completed using the
design system, user engagement, user contributions, and the impact
on metrics like customer satisfaction over time.
Further set yourself up for success by hiring designers who are
analytically minded, can express how their work contributes to business
goals, and are strong collaborators.

11 | Unlocking Design’s Full Business Potential

 Appendix A: Methodology
In this study, Forrester conducted an online survey of 385 design professionals at the manager level or above
in the US, Canada, England, France, Germany, and Japan to evaluate to business impact of design system
maturity. Survey participants included decision makers in design or UX. Questions provided to the participants
asked about the components, processes, and outcomes of their current design systems. Respondents were
offered a small incentive as a thank you for time spent on the survey. The study began in November 2019 and
was completed in December 2019.

Appendix B: Demographics/Data
“In which country are you located?” “Which of the following best describes the industry to
which your company belongs?”
12% 17%
Technology and/or technology services 13%
CAN UK
15% Financial services and/or insurance 11%
29% 10% 17%
DE Retail 9%
US FR JP
Manufacturing and materials 9%

Healthcare 6%

Transportation and logistics 5%

Travel and hospitality 4%

“Using your best estimate, how many employees work for Telecommunications services 4%
your firm/organization worldwide?”
Energy, utilities, and/or waste management 4%
17%
20,000 or more Electronics 4%
employees Consumer product goods and/or manufacturing 4%
46% Business or professional services 4%
1,000 to 4,999
employees Advertising and/or marketing 4%

Construction 3%
37% Agriculture, food, and/or beverage 3%
5,000 to 19,999
employees Media and/or leisure 2%

Government 2%

Education and/or nonprofits 2%

Consumer services 2%

Chemicals and/or metals 2%

Legal services 1%

Other (please specify) 0%

Base: 385 respondents at the manager level and above in the design or product side of the business, responsible for creating
design systems
Note: Percentages may not total 100 because of rounding.
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Adobe, December 2019

12 | Unlocking Design’s Full Business Potential

Appendix C: Endnotes
1
Source: “How To Scale Your Design Organization,” Forrester Research, Inc., October 18, 2018.
2
Many studies have demonstrated the impact design has on business results. See Improving CX Through
Business Discipline Drives Growth,” Forrester Research, Inc., September 11, 2019; “The ROI Of Design
Thinking: Part 1, Overview,” Forrester Research, Inc., May 16, 2019; Benedict Sheppard, Hugo Sarrazin,
Garen Kouyoumijan, and Fabricio Dore, “The business value of design,” McKinsey & Company, October
2018; and “2015 dmi: Design Value Index Results and Commentary,” Design Management Institute.

13 | Unlocking Design’s Full Business Potential