Design systems · Figma
Aster: Building accessibility and behavior into the system
Aster is a production oriented interface system built around semantic tokens, explicit interaction states, and native Figma component properties. The goal is not more UI inventory. It is to make common decisions repeatable, visible, and harder to misuse.
- Domain
- Design systems · Accessibility
- Role
- Solo product designer
- Platform
- Figma · Interface system
- Year
- 2026
- Scope
- Foundations, tokens, components, interaction states
- Reading time
- 4 min
30 Second Summary
OWNERSHIP
I defined the foundation rules, semantic color structure, typography and spacing scales, component anatomy, variant properties, interaction states, and applied component behavior.
CORE DECISION
Encode intent, density, state, selection, and feedback as explicit component properties instead of relying on detached one off styling.
EVIDENCE
Two system boards and three native Figma recordings show foundations, component matrices, and property driven behavior.
LIMITATION
This project demonstrates system architecture and component behavior, not organization wide adoption or measured production impact.
Foundations carry meaning, not just values.
Primitive values feed semantic collections, with separate light and dark semantics, a constrained type hierarchy, spacing scale, and radius system.
Variants should behave like a system, not a screenshot inventory.
Buttons, fields, selection controls, feedback, tabs, and selects expose explicit properties that affect meaning and behavior.
The proof is in the properties panel.
Three native Figma recordings show property driven Button, Text Field, and Selection Controls behavior.
Accessibility is encoded as visible state logic.
Aster models focus visibility, semantic feedback, error, disabled, read only, selected, and indeterminate states as explicit component behavior. This is accessibility intent, not a claim of formal WCAG certification.
AI accelerated construction. The system decisions stayed designer directed.
AI helped accelerate repetitive construction and variant generation. I directed the semantic architecture, component properties, accessibility requirements, content hierarchy, visual review, and final quality bar.
A design system is a decision system.
The strongest part of Aster is not the size of the component inventory. It is that recurring product decisions become explicit and reusable.
