The applying design token to a design UX is fundamentally broken and inconvenient. I really don’t understand why the team felt the need to go for something different than the tried and true dropdown menu next to the field where the user is applying the value. Having to hunt the property I’m trying to apply a token to inside of a different dropdown, after you’ve already gotten my mind used to the UI in the right side makes 0 sense.
And this is not even mentioning that applying tokens and managing your layers basically become either/or operations, since they reside in the same left panel, so you cannot do one while doing the other.
Why did the team opt for this UI/UX choice? Should we be expecting functional dropdowns for tokens in the right panel? What about auto-completion for tokens? I started out loving the idea of Penpot but it seems like the same old design issues of open-source software are rearing their ugly heads into Penpot too.
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The short answer is yes, we’re currently working on showing and applying design tokens from the design panel fields and the color picker. Here’s the user story if you want to dig into the specifics. Most of the tasks are wrapped up at the time that I’m writing this, so I’m feeling confident about publishing this huge improvement soon. Also, here’s a sneak peek of what’s coming.
Why did we decide to launch design tokens so they could only be seen and applied from the assets panel? Because we saw that as the minimum viable version we could ship first. We’d rather release earlier than wait for the “perfect” version for several reasons:
- We can solve user problems sooner by unlocking real use cases.
- We learn from actual usage, gathering real evidence (not assumptions) that helps us prioritize and improve the product.
It’s not about lowering quality. It’s about taking the right steps to reach the best possible solution. Without the learnings that come from releasing early, it’s hard to make the right calls.
This way of thinking applies to the rest of the feature too. The first release of design tokens in Penpot was just the foundation, and since then we’ve shipped five consecutive releases with design token improvements. We intend to keep doing this. We share more about our short- and mid-term plans in this post.
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