Living Design Systems are great

Design systems provide consistency and efficiency in building products They are extremely powerful and yes, I love them. But they can hinder product growth when they become too rigid. We can’t put too much emphasis on upholding them. Design systems need to evolve alongside product and user needs, not stop or prevent new designs.

Deviations and iteration are powerful

It’s ok to break the design system sometimes. These are self-imposed rules. It’s all made up! “The system” doesn’t know where the user is at in their journey. Different moments should look and feel different! Deviating from design can be a one-off for a certain moment (like onboarding) or be an experiment.

Introducing design debt is the only way to test into possible better design features (or to further validate existing ones!) We need to be comfortable starting with “just ok” solutions and iterate into great ones.

Consistency for the user’s sake is weak reasoning for upholding a rigid design system. Customers won’t really know if or when you “break” your design system as they likely won’t interact with the full spectrum of your product anyway.

Iterating within design makes for very large (and I’m sure very impressive Figma files), but doesn’t really teach you anything about your audience. The second pass on a solution will be informed with real data and customer insights. And a new design failing a test means the existing design system is working, which is also a valuable learning!

Be responsible and clean up after yourself

Introducing design debt is a strategic move. It allows for testing new features and validating existing ones, leading to potentially better design outcomes. But it’s crucial to manage this debt consciously. Finishing a test means clean up – both the Figma design system and the code.

TL;DR

Embracing design system deviations and managing design debt responsibly are critical for delivering exceptional products that resonate with users.