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The politics of Design Systems
Why building trust matters more than building components.There’s a scene in Field of Dreams that regularly comes to mind. Ray Kinsellais standing at the edge of his cornfield ballpark, full of doubt about his ball field project. And then Terrence Manndelivers this quiet but powerful monologue…James Earl Jones as Terrence Mann gives an inspiring speech“People will come, Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom… They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past… They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it — for it is money they have and peace they lack.”It’s powerful. And there’s temptation for designers to think this way. That, if we just build it properly, people will come and use it. It’ll be a raving success. But that kind of thinking rests on emotion and hope. “People will come, Ray.”That got me thinking about my work with design systems. Because early on, that’s exactly how I imagined it would work.No…they won’t just come.I thought if you just built a great design system, people would come running from all over to use it. Designers would geek out. Engineers would contribute. PMs would rally around the time savings and consistency. I thought the system would basically sell itself. Job done.Except not. Not at first. In fact, most of those people actively resisted it. And it left me frustrated trying to figure out what was going on.That’s when it hit me: people don’t come just because you built something. They come because you built something that includes them. This isn’t a fictional baseball field built on faith. They don’t come because they don’t know it. It’s foreign. And as humans, we tend to run away from what we don’t understand.That’s why the people who work on design systems are so important. So that you can be known and your systems can be known. So that a relationship can be established. Trust can be created and people can see that this system will work for them. In fact, it’s been purpose-built for them.Design Systems are politicalI never would have imagined how political design systems would be. They seem logical and straightforward. It’s everything you need to build interfaces and consistent experiences. So, I thought the quality of the work would speak for itself. But once your system meets the real world, things get complicated. Real fast.Everyone already has established working patterns and people aren’t usually inclined to change. Plus, designers have their opinions. Engineers have priorities. Product managers have launch dates. And everyone already has a “good-enough solution”. So, now your carefully crafted design system feels more like a threat or liability than the life-changing birthday present you thought it’d be.You thought you were offering something amazing. They hear restriction. They see more steps. And they’re annoyed — at you — for meddling in their perfectly stable world.Why? Well, people love their tools. And, I mean LOVE them. They deeply cherish them. I think of the carpenter who’s used the same, trusty 20oz wood-handled hammer for 40 years. It’s weathered difficult projects and has dents and stains from 1,000s of projects. How do you convince someone to leave that hammer behind and pick up a new, unproven hammer for their work? It usually happens in community…in relationships.So, it turns out, building the system was the easy part. Getting people to care about it? That’s the real work. And that’s where building relationships comes in.The real work: building relationshipsTrue adoption doesn’t happen through documentation or a flashy campaign.So you can’t rely on a “build it and they will come” mentality. It means you need to make time to understand the people you’re building for and with. Because if it isn’t theirs, it won’t matter how good it is. Every group has different motivations, pain points, and goals. If you want them on board, you have to speak to them, about them, and how your system will help them.Designers need to see how the system supports creativity, not stifles it. Demonstrate how it will help them be more effective in their work.Engineers care about stability, performance, and clean code. Show them the efficiency that it brings to their development pipelines.PMs are focused on delivery. Make the system reduce friction and risk.Executives want the business case to be clear. Show them how your system enables faster velocity, better consistency, and reduced maintenance cost.Establishing how individual goals come together as shared goals is critical.Sounds selfish, right? Not really. They’re paid to do their job, and if you want your design system to be successful, it has to make them successful. So if you can’t answer a need to any of your partners or stakeholders, go back and figure out how to create that kind of value…or start with the people where the value already is.It’s the relationships that shift the dynamic. Suddenly it’s not “my design system vs. their priorities”…it’s shared ownership…our collective win.You can’t enforce your way to powerful adoptionYour first instinct might be to skip the relationships and rely on the “because I said so” method. So you add mandates. Governance councils. Approval gates. But none of them really work. You’ll have people subvert the system, or hold so fearfully tight to it that it hurts the product experience in the end.People don’t adopt systems because they have to. They adopt them because they believe in them. And belief is earned, not enforced. Your job is to find the intrinsic motivation that will cause them to jump on board and be a raving fan spreading the good news of your system. And that can’t be a marketing slogan or tagline; it has to be built into the design system.The goal isn’t to control usage…it’s to cultivate trust, leading to usage. It’s better to have ten enthusiastic partners than a hundred reluctant rule-followers. Because those ten partners? They’ll advocate for you. They’ll give real feedback. They’ll make the system better.It sounds uncomfortable, but it’s best to trade policing behavior for building partnerships. That’s the moment your system will truly grow. Because trust is a currency that earns interest.Trust is the real foundationDesign systems rely on a strong foundation: principles, guidelines, tokens, styles, components, and more. But that foundation must be built on something critical: trust.Trust is what makes someone choose the system instead of rolling their own. It’s what keeps your system on their radar when everything’s on fire. It’s what makes people reach out to work it out together, instead of working around you and subverting the whole thing.Without trust, your system is just a nice idea. It’s relegated to pixel art. But with relationships that foster trust…they see how the system becomes indispensable. It’s their go-to secret weapon for success.Trust and relationships are the ground that all foundations are built on.I’ve been on both sides. I’ve had teams avoid the system because they didn’t trust it…because they didn’t trust me. Here’s the secret: I know them or how to serve them…no trust. On the flip side, I’ve seen teams move faster, smoother, and more confidently because we’d built a foundation of partnership over time.Trust isn’t a side effect. It’s not a nice-to-have. It’s the ground that holds the whole thing up. Without it, your design system is drifting in the outer cosmos. Relationships are the gravity that keeps your design system grounded in trust.They’ll come… but only if you earn itSo, I hate to break it to you, but the truth is…no one’s coming just because your system is well-made. There’s already a plethora of well-made systems out there ready to leave you disappointed.They’re busy with the newest top priority. They’ve been burned by “that type of system” before. They see you as a risk, not a partner. But…if you spend time knowing them… if you listen… if you build trust… if you make it feel like it’s theirs… well then… “…they will come…”They’ll message you before they start a new feature. They’ll advocate for tokens during sprint planning. They’ll tell others it saved them time. They’ll ask how they can help improve it.They won’t come for the components. They’ll come for what the system gives them: clarity. Consistency. Relief.And if you’ve done the hard, human work behind the system? Well then, you might just look up one day and realize that there’s a whole bunch of people in your Iowa ball field.The politics of Design Systems was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
#politics #design #systems
The politics of Design Systems
Why building trust matters more than building components.There’s a scene in Field of Dreams that regularly comes to mind. Ray Kinsellais standing at the edge of his cornfield ballpark, full of doubt about his ball field project. And then Terrence Manndelivers this quiet but powerful monologue…James Earl Jones as Terrence Mann gives an inspiring speech“People will come, Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom… They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past… They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it — for it is money they have and peace they lack.”It’s powerful. And there’s temptation for designers to think this way. That, if we just build it properly, people will come and use it. It’ll be a raving success. But that kind of thinking rests on emotion and hope. “People will come, Ray.”That got me thinking about my work with design systems. Because early on, that’s exactly how I imagined it would work.No…they won’t just come.I thought if you just built a great design system, people would come running from all over to use it. Designers would geek out. Engineers would contribute. PMs would rally around the time savings and consistency. I thought the system would basically sell itself. Job done.Except not. Not at first. In fact, most of those people actively resisted it. And it left me frustrated trying to figure out what was going on.That’s when it hit me: people don’t come just because you built something. They come because you built something that includes them. This isn’t a fictional baseball field built on faith. They don’t come because they don’t know it. It’s foreign. And as humans, we tend to run away from what we don’t understand.That’s why the people who work on design systems are so important. So that you can be known and your systems can be known. So that a relationship can be established. Trust can be created and people can see that this system will work for them. In fact, it’s been purpose-built for them.Design Systems are politicalI never would have imagined how political design systems would be. They seem logical and straightforward. It’s everything you need to build interfaces and consistent experiences. So, I thought the quality of the work would speak for itself. But once your system meets the real world, things get complicated. Real fast.Everyone already has established working patterns and people aren’t usually inclined to change. Plus, designers have their opinions. Engineers have priorities. Product managers have launch dates. And everyone already has a “good-enough solution”. So, now your carefully crafted design system feels more like a threat or liability than the life-changing birthday present you thought it’d be.You thought you were offering something amazing. They hear restriction. They see more steps. And they’re annoyed — at you — for meddling in their perfectly stable world.Why? Well, people love their tools. And, I mean LOVE them. They deeply cherish them. I think of the carpenter who’s used the same, trusty 20oz wood-handled hammer for 40 years. It’s weathered difficult projects and has dents and stains from 1,000s of projects. How do you convince someone to leave that hammer behind and pick up a new, unproven hammer for their work? It usually happens in community…in relationships.So, it turns out, building the system was the easy part. Getting people to care about it? That’s the real work. And that’s where building relationships comes in.The real work: building relationshipsTrue adoption doesn’t happen through documentation or a flashy campaign.So you can’t rely on a “build it and they will come” mentality. It means you need to make time to understand the people you’re building for and with. Because if it isn’t theirs, it won’t matter how good it is. Every group has different motivations, pain points, and goals. If you want them on board, you have to speak to them, about them, and how your system will help them.Designers need to see how the system supports creativity, not stifles it. Demonstrate how it will help them be more effective in their work.Engineers care about stability, performance, and clean code. Show them the efficiency that it brings to their development pipelines.PMs are focused on delivery. Make the system reduce friction and risk.Executives want the business case to be clear. Show them how your system enables faster velocity, better consistency, and reduced maintenance cost.Establishing how individual goals come together as shared goals is critical.Sounds selfish, right? Not really. They’re paid to do their job, and if you want your design system to be successful, it has to make them successful. So if you can’t answer a need to any of your partners or stakeholders, go back and figure out how to create that kind of value…or start with the people where the value already is.It’s the relationships that shift the dynamic. Suddenly it’s not “my design system vs. their priorities”…it’s shared ownership…our collective win.You can’t enforce your way to powerful adoptionYour first instinct might be to skip the relationships and rely on the “because I said so” method. So you add mandates. Governance councils. Approval gates. But none of them really work. You’ll have people subvert the system, or hold so fearfully tight to it that it hurts the product experience in the end.People don’t adopt systems because they have to. They adopt them because they believe in them. And belief is earned, not enforced. Your job is to find the intrinsic motivation that will cause them to jump on board and be a raving fan spreading the good news of your system. And that can’t be a marketing slogan or tagline; it has to be built into the design system.The goal isn’t to control usage…it’s to cultivate trust, leading to usage. It’s better to have ten enthusiastic partners than a hundred reluctant rule-followers. Because those ten partners? They’ll advocate for you. They’ll give real feedback. They’ll make the system better.It sounds uncomfortable, but it’s best to trade policing behavior for building partnerships. That’s the moment your system will truly grow. Because trust is a currency that earns interest.Trust is the real foundationDesign systems rely on a strong foundation: principles, guidelines, tokens, styles, components, and more. But that foundation must be built on something critical: trust.Trust is what makes someone choose the system instead of rolling their own. It’s what keeps your system on their radar when everything’s on fire. It’s what makes people reach out to work it out together, instead of working around you and subverting the whole thing.Without trust, your system is just a nice idea. It’s relegated to pixel art. But with relationships that foster trust…they see how the system becomes indispensable. It’s their go-to secret weapon for success.Trust and relationships are the ground that all foundations are built on.I’ve been on both sides. I’ve had teams avoid the system because they didn’t trust it…because they didn’t trust me. Here’s the secret: I know them or how to serve them…no trust. On the flip side, I’ve seen teams move faster, smoother, and more confidently because we’d built a foundation of partnership over time.Trust isn’t a side effect. It’s not a nice-to-have. It’s the ground that holds the whole thing up. Without it, your design system is drifting in the outer cosmos. Relationships are the gravity that keeps your design system grounded in trust.They’ll come… but only if you earn itSo, I hate to break it to you, but the truth is…no one’s coming just because your system is well-made. There’s already a plethora of well-made systems out there ready to leave you disappointed.They’re busy with the newest top priority. They’ve been burned by “that type of system” before. They see you as a risk, not a partner. But…if you spend time knowing them… if you listen… if you build trust… if you make it feel like it’s theirs… well then… “…they will come…”They’ll message you before they start a new feature. They’ll advocate for tokens during sprint planning. They’ll tell others it saved them time. They’ll ask how they can help improve it.They won’t come for the components. They’ll come for what the system gives them: clarity. Consistency. Relief.And if you’ve done the hard, human work behind the system? Well then, you might just look up one day and realize that there’s a whole bunch of people in your Iowa ball field.The politics of Design Systems was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
#politics #design #systems
