Most design systems fail not because the components are bad, but because teams ignore them. Here’s the process we used to build one that eight product teams genuinely adopted — and the mistakes we made along the way.
Start with an audit, not a library
We catalogued every button, input, and colour already in use. Seeing thirty shades of “primary blue” makes the case for a system better than any pitch deck.
Design tokens first
Colours, spacing, typography, and radii live as tokens — a single source of truth shared by design (Figma) and code. Change a token and it propagates everywhere.
Build for the consumers
- Accessible, documented components with clear usage examples
- Published as a versioned package teams can install
- Storybook as living, always-current documentation
Adoption is a people problem
The system only stuck once we involved engineers early, ran office hours, and made the right way the easy way. We measured adoption and removed friction instead of mandating compliance.
Mistakes we made
We over-engineered the early components and under-documented them. The lesson: ship a small, well-documented core and grow it from real needs.
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