In a world where applications and websites must work seamlessly across devices, teams, and platforms, design systems are becoming essential in maintaining consistency, scalability, and speed of development. One powerful but sometimes overlooked approach to building robust design systems is Web Components. These custom, reusable, encapsulated HTML elements have been evolving rapidly and are now supported across all modern browsers. Web Components bring a native, framework-agnostic solution to building thoughtful design systems that scale.
What Are Web Components?
Web Components are a set of web platform APIs that allow developers to create new, reusable, and encapsulated HTML tags. They consist of three main technologies:
- Custom Elements: Define your own HTML elements using JavaScript.
- Shadow DOM: Provides encapsulated DOM and style for your components.
- HTML Templates: Define markup templates that can be reused by custom elements.
Together, these technologies allow developers to create components that work seamlessly in any project—whether it’s built in React, Angular, Vue, or even plain JavaScript—as long as it runs in a browser.
Why Web Components Work for Design Systems
Design Systems thrive with structured, reusable components. Here’s why Web Components make a strong case for being the foundation for such systems:
1. Framework Agnosticism
One of the biggest challenges with current design systems is framework lock-in. A system built with React, for example, may not be useful for a team working on a Vue-based application. Web Components, on the other hand, are part of the browser’s core functionality, meaning you can use them anywhere, without needing to depend on a specific JavaScript library or framework.
2. True Encapsulation
Using the Shadow DOM, Web Components encapsulate their styles and markup. This eliminates style bleeding and DOM interference between components and their surrounding environments. In a large-scale enterprise application, this level of isolation can dramatically reduce bugs and inconsistencies.
3. Reusability and Consistency
With Web Components, you’re building reusable building blocks that can enforce both UI and UX consistency. Once a button, modal, or notification component is created, it can be dropped into any application that understands HTML. This makes consistent branding and behavior easier to control across diverse projects.
4. Longevity and Stability
Web Components have the benefit of being a part of the web platform itself. This reduces the likelihood of disruptive API changes or deprecated features—unlike some third-party libraries or frameworks that can become obsolete in a few years. Designers and developers can trust that their components will remain stable and interoperable for the long term.
5. Improved Developer Collaboration
Design systems often involve teams across multiple disciplines: design, front-end development, back-end development, and more. Web Components simplify handoffs and integration because they function similarly to native HTML elements. A developer from any background can understand the interface and behavior simply by reading HTML.
How Web Components Empower Designers
Often, the conversation around Web Components is developer-focused—but there’s plenty of value here for designers as well. When properly documented and organized within a design system, Web Components allow designers to see how their intended designs come to life across various applications:
- Maintain branding: Consistent styles and interactions baked into UI elements.
- Accelerate prototyping: Plug in ready-made components instead of designing from scratch.
- Promote reuse: Reduce redundancy and manual tweaking across teams.
Challenges to Be Aware Of
Despite their advantages, Web Components aren’t without limitations.
- Learning Curve: Features like the Shadow DOM can be complex for developers unfamiliar with the concept.
- Tooling: While growing, the ecosystem around Web Components isn’t as mature as those supported by larger frameworks like React or Angular.
- Accessibility: Web Components can sometimes obscure semantic information unless properly designed. Developers need to be deliberate in ensuring accessibility is baked into every component.
Fortunately, standards are maturing, and tooling is improving. Frameworks like Lit and Stencil are emerging to make building Web Components easier and more efficient, further encouraging the adoption of this technology in professional design systems.
Examples in Use
Major companies and organizations are already leveraging Web Components in their design systems, offering real-world validation of their effectiveness:
- Salesforce Lightning Web Components: A modern framework built on Web Component standards.
- Google’s Material Web Components: Bringing Material Design as reusable web elements.
- IBM’s Carbon Design System: Offers Web Component versions of many of their core UI elements.
These implementations underscore the reliability and scalability of Web Components in large-scale, design-focused environments.
How to Start Incorporating Web Components
If you’re thinking of integrating Web Components into your design system, consider the following steps:
- Audit Your Design System: Identify core components that make sense to modularize as Web Components.
- Pick a Tool or Library: While vanilla Web Components work perfectly, libraries like Lit can help speed up development with more ergonomic APIs.
- Document Thoroughly: Ensure every component includes usage examples, accessibility considerations, and slot customization info.
- Test Robustly: Since Web Components are often used across multiple browsers and platforms, diligent testing is necessary to guarantee consistent behavior.
- Rollout Gradually: Don’t attempt a full migration at once; introduce components incrementally based on team readiness and project priority.
The Future of Web Components in Design Systems
As development teams become increasingly cross-functional and ecosystem-diverse, the need for universally compatible, reusable UI components will continue to grow. Web Components are uniquely positioned to meet this demand, offering a future-proof, maintainable, and scalable solution for evolving design systems.
Modern applications are built by teams working in silos, using different tech stacks across departments. This reality demands a solution that doesn’t lean heavily on any one framework—and Web Components deliver just that. In the coming years, we can expect better tooling, tighter integrations with design tooling like Figma, and broader community adoption as the benefits become even more apparent.
Final Thoughts
While Web Components may not be the perfect fit for every team or project, their advantages—especially for long-term design system sustainability—are impossible to ignore. Their modularity, encapsulation, and framework-agnostic nature make them an excellent choice for organizations seeking to maintain a consistent user experience across platforms, teams, and technologies.
Whether you’re building a new design system from scratch or modernizing an existing one, now is a great time to explore how Web Components can fit into your workflow. As more design and development leaders recognize their value, Web Components are steadily transforming from a niche technology into a foundational part of the modern web.
