What’s an App Style Guide and What’s It For?

Discover the benefits of using a style guide when designing and developing apps

Christian Vizcarra (@christvizcarra) is a Senior UI/UX Product Designer and Digital Strategist whose work also includes elements of marketing, social media, 3D, and video. On a daily basis, he creates digital products, as well as designing websites, apps, and different interfaces for companies around the world.

Here Vizcarra explains the purpose of a style guide and why it is a key tool when designing and developing apps.

What is a style guide?

The main function of a style guide is to address the FAQs that are likely to be asked by the design and development teams. In a few words, it’s a document that describes the company principles and how to apply them, including:

–patterns
–styles
–components
–practices
–colors
–typographies
–what’s allowed
–what’s not allowed

A style guide is similar to a brand handbook but is created specifically for apps.

What’s it for?

An app style guide ensures that all of the teams involved in building an app are on the same page in terms of style and rules.

Establishing rules regarding font sizes, button colors, and more, saves time in the long run. Abiding by these rules will eventually become second nature for the development team and this will result in there being fewer changes to be made in the final stage of revisions.

Benefits of using a style guide

–It’s a communication tool that serves as a bridge between teams. It ensures that everyone is clear on how the final product should look.

–It guarantees consistency throughout all of the apps in terms of design and development.

–It defines details regarding the app’s appearance. This means that, before development has even begun, various problems have already been resolved.

–It resolves the needs of the teams.

–It makes everyone’s workload and workflow more manageable.

How to create a style guide?

Before you start designing a style guide, it’s a good idea to respond to the following simple questions:

–Who is going to use the style guide?

–What should it contain? (Components, UI kit, typefaces, colors, etc.)

–When will it be used? (Before, during the project.)

–How will you present it visually?

If you want to learn more from Christian and create your own style guide, sign up to his course, App Style Guide Creation.

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