Design tokens are a methodology for expressing design decisions in a platform-agnostic way so that they can be shared across different disciplines, tools, and technologies. They help establish a common vocabulary across organisations.

The middle layer approach pushes designers to explicitly describe the component visual architecture and that translates to its better understanding.

Designers want every part of the app interface and all the elements to have the same look and feel, and design tokens were created to help them achieve that outcome.