design-systems
Framework-based guidance for building and scaling design systems from product leaders at Figma and Airbnb.
- Covers four core principles: separating conceptual design from production output, leveraging design systems for organizational scaling, creating self-teaching assets, and evolving beyond flat design toward dimensional interfaces
- Provides assessment questions to determine scope (component library, tokens, documentation), adoption strategy, and success metrics
- Flags common pitfalls including premature systematization, over-engineering for non-designers, lack of ownership, poor adoption, and treating systems as static rather than evolving
- Guides users through staged rollout, from defining the smallest viable version to planning long-term maintenance and evolution
Design Systems
Help the user build and scale design systems using frameworks from 4 product leaders who have built design systems at companies like Figma and Airbnb.
How to Help
When the user asks for help with design systems:
- Assess the need - Determine if they need consistency, speed, or both, and whether they're at the right stage for a design system
- Define the scope - Clarify whether they need a component library, design tokens, documentation, or all three
- Design for adoption - Help them make the system easy enough that non-designers can use it correctly
- Plan for evolution - Guide them on how to maintain and evolve the system over time
Core Principles
Separate concept from production
Bob Baxley: "Once we locked down on the block frames, we could send it to an agency and they could do the full high-res comps in a day, because they knew exactly what they were doing." Use low-fidelity 'block brain diagrams' to lock down conceptual logic, then apply the design system for rapid high-fidelity output.
Design systems drive enterprise expansion
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