Design Systems

Named values that carry design decisions, so a change happens once rather than in every consuming file.

SYS·001Design system · Foundations

The props a component exposes determine whether it gets used correctly or forked, which is the main failure mode of design systems.

SYS·002Design system · Components

Documentation is the product. An undocumented system is a component library nobody can adopt correctly.

SYS·003Design system · Practice

Who decides what goes in, how changes are proposed, and how the system stays coherent as more people touch it.

SYS·004Design system · Practice

A system nobody uses is a cost centre, and adoption is won by making the system the easiest path rather than by mandate.

SYS·005Design system · Practice

How the system changes without breaking the products built on it.

SYS·006Design system · Practice

How work gets from a product team into the shared system without either blocking the team or degrading the system.

SYS·007Design system · Practice

Supporting several visual identities from one system, which is a token architecture problem before it is a design problem.

SYS·008Design system · Foundations

A component is finished when its parts, its states and the reason each variant exists are all written down.

SYS·009Design system · Components

Two libraries claiming to be the same system will diverge. Decide where truth lives, and make the other side derive from it.

SYS·010Design system · Practice

Count what is actually in production before deciding what the system should contain.

SYS·011Design system · Practice