Design Systems: A Zookeeper’s Perspective
Last week’s back-and-forth blogging among smart people quoting other smart people was entertaining to watch. If you missed the thread, starting at the end and working backward is probably the best way to catch up.
I have just one small observation to add. I don’t actually work much with design systems. My teams are pretty small, and we’ve all settled on a system that functions well enough without anything you’d formally call a design system. When we did intentionally move in that direction, we weren’t architects or gardeners—we were zookeepers. The work was mostly documenting what already existed, which made for a fine exercise but wasn’t particularly useful in practice. That said, this applies only to us.
