Design systems
Design systems small teams can maintain
Most design systems fall apart when the person who built them leaves. Here is how we set ours up to last.
Written by
Yuna Park
Most design systems fall apart when the person who built them leaves. Here is how we set ours up to last.
Start smaller than you think
A system with 40 well-documented components is more useful than one with 300 that nobody understands. We start with the components your product uses every day.
Write docs for engineers
Every component has a short page with when to use it, when not to, and a link to the code.
Give it an owner
One designer and one engineer own the system
Changes are reviewed once a week
Every release has a short changelog
More articles
Research
What we learned from 400 customer interviews
The interview questions that work, the ones that don’t, and how we turn answers into design decisions.
Process
Our discovery playbook for week one
How we spend the first five days of every project, and what you get at the end of the week.
Engineering
How to write a handoff file engineers love
What goes into our handoff files, what we leave out and why fewer notes often work better.
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