Three Phases of Life for Design Systems

You need to get comfortable with the notion that the design system is always eventually wrong. Listen to the needs of the teams you support, help them get to good results faster, and be prepared to be proven wrong.

This is why I find design systems so difficult. They’re always wrong. You’ve never nailed it. I suppose this is akin to all software, so it shouldn’t be surprising. But not being surprising doesn’t mean it’s less difficult to accept. It’s like product work: you’re constantly learning, refining, refactoring, releasing, etc.

in the minds of your customers—and the teams within your organisation—the design system already exists. It’s whatever the product is made up of, regardless of whether there’s a team actually trying to make it more cohesive or consistent. Reflect this existing world, reducing redundancies and simplifying complexity, and you’ll have a design system in no time.