The design systems we swim in. — Ethan Marcotte

Craft vs Industry: Separating Concerns by Thomas Michael Semmler: CSS Developer, Designer & Developer from Vienna, Austria

Call me Cassandra:

The way that industry incorporates design systems is basically a misappropriation, or abuse at worst. It is not just me who is seeing the problem with ongoing industrialization in design. Even Brad Frost, the inventor of atomic design, is expressing similar concerns. In the words of Jeremy Keith:

[…] Design systems take their place in a long history of dehumanising approaches to manufacturing like Taylorism. The priorities of “scientific management” are the same as those of design systems—increasing efficiency and enforcing consistency.

So no. It is not just you. We all feel it. This quote is from 2020, by the way. What was then a prediction has since become a reality.

This grim assessment is well worth a read. It rings very true.

What could have become Design Systemics, in which we applied systems theory, cybernetics, and constructivism to the process and practice of design, is now instead being reduced to component libraries. As a designer, I find this utter nonsense. Everyone who has even just witnessed a design process in action knows that the deliverable is merely a documenting artifact of the process and does not constitute it at all. But for companies, the “output” is all that matters, because it can be measured; it appeals to the industrialized process because it scales. Once a component is designed, it can be reused, configured, and composed to produce “free” iterations without having to consult a designer. The cost was reduced while the output was maximized. Goal achieved!

Through a design system, darkly. — Ethan Marcotte

1. Design systems haven’t “solved” inconsistency. Rather, they’ve shifted how and when it manifests.
2. Many design systems have introduced another, deeper issue: a problem of visibility.

Ethan makes the case that it’s time we stopped taking a pattern-led approach to design systems and start taking a process-led approach. I agree. I think there’s often more emphasis on the “design” than the “system”.

5 ways having a shared design system has helped us ship our designs faster – Product at Canva

The steps that the Canva team took to turbocharge their design ops.

I’ll talk about why creating a shared design system has boosted our organizational productivity—and how you can help your teams improve product quality while reducing your company’s ‘design debt’.

Design machines | Louder Than Ten

When another company achieves success, there’s a lot of pressure to investigate what they did right and apply that to our own organizations.

But we still have a chance. As long as we run brave organizations made up of even braver souls who are willing to embrace expression, trust their intuition and experiences, and stand up when everyone else is sitting down, we will survive.

On design systems and agency | Andrew Travers

Design systems can often ‘read’ as very top down, but need to be bottom up to reflect the needs of different users of different services in different contexts.

I’ve yet to be involved in a design system that hasn’t struggled to some extent for participation and contribution from the whole of its design community.