Software Developer

New tool dramatically improves designer, developer, workflows

Pro

20 August 2018

A new design tool called Lucid offers designers a chance to create design systems without the use of code.

A designer and a developer are not the same thing, separated by a digital gulf comprised of code. When creating a design system for digital products, this problem is usually exacerbated – until now, that is, with the launch of Lucid, a tool for creating, managing and sharing design systems without any need for code.

Lucid was created by UK UX designer Matt McCallum as a way to enable designers and developers to work better together, and allows the former to easily create rich design systems so they can craft consistent products efficiently.

Lucid is also set up to provide automation tools so designers can push style attributes from the design tool of their choice into their project’s code.

“Over the last few years we’ve seen great design systems from Google, Airbnb, Mailchimp, Trello, Shopify, even IBM” says Matt. “We know that design systems thinking helps us develop and ship products faster.”

“But these guys have big budgets. Creating and publishing a beautifully presented design system from scratch takes time and effort, which is why it often ends up low on the priority list.”

“We’ve tried to solve this by making Lucid as frictionless as possible,” Matt continues. “It’s about levelling the playing field and enabling product teams to create their own design systems, whatever their size.”

As a start-up Lucid is still in its infancy, with only a beta version so far having gone live. But Matt sees big things ahead. “So far we’ve focused on simplicity and usability, just to see how people use Lucid and figure out how it fits into their workflow.”

“We’re thinking about potential integrations with some of the great design products out there like Sketch and Invision Studio, and talking to developers about whether there’s an appetite to incorporate UI frameworks.”

Lucid comes with 3 price plans; a free version that gives you 3 projects you can publish for up to 30 days, or a £6 (€6.70) per month plan that gives you 3 projects with no time limit. Lucid’s unlimited option comes in at £20 (€22.32) per month, or $25 for US readers.

 

IDG News Service

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