Why Most Design Systems Fail - And How the Best Ones Actually Work

A few days ago, I was deep in a project when a colleague messaged me: "Hey, what shade of blue are we using for primary buttons again?" 

This is the chaos that design systems promise to solve - but rarely do, at least not in the way most teams expect.

I remember the first time I heard someone describe design systems as "Lego blocks for digital products." 

It sounded so neat, so logical. 

Build once, use everywhere, achieve consistency. 

But after watching countless teams struggle with adoption, I've realized we've been thinking about this all wrong. 

Design systems aren't really about the components at all. They're about changing how people work together.

P.S. Here is a library of design systems to inspire you.

Here's what usually happens: A company decides they need a design system. 

They invest months building this gorgeous library of components. 

They launch it with fanfare, maybe even host a lunch-and-learn. 

But six months later, designers are still creating custom buttons, developers are building their own components, and that beautiful design system sits like an expensive piece of furniture nobody uses.

The problem isn't the system itself. It's that we treat design systems like technical solutions to human problems. 

We assume that if we build the perfect button component, everyone will naturally gravitate toward using it. 

But humans are stubborn creatures of habit. 

We stick to what we know, especially when we're under pressure to ship features fast.

The most successful design systems I've studied don't just solve design problems - they solve communication problems. 

Take Spotify's design system. Everyone talks about how slick their components look, but the real magic happens in how they've structured their teams. 

They use what they call a "T-shaped" skill model, where people develop deep expertise in their own area while understanding enough about other disciplines to collaborate effectively.

When a designer creates a new component, they're having conversations about technical constraints, performance implications, and implementation complexity from day one. 

This is where most design systems fail. 

They focus on the artifacts - the Figma files, the code libraries, the documentation sites - without addressing the underlying collaboration challenges. 

The Spotify design system becomes less about perfect documentation and more about creating a shared language between people who traditionally spoke different professional dialects.

Lauren LoPrete from Dropbox nailed it when she said, "Design system adoption is culture change disguised as a UI kit."

Companies spend months perfecting their component libraries while completely ignoring the cultural work required to make them successful. 

They assume that if they build it, people will come. 

But adoption isn't a technical problem - it's a human one.

The most effective design system teams I've encountered spend as much time on change management as they do on component design. 

They identify champions in different departments, create feedback loops, and most importantly, they listen to resistance instead of dismissing it. 

This requires a fundamental shift in how we think about ownership. 

Traditional design systems are often built by a central team who becomes the gatekeeper of all changes. 

But the most successful systems embrace what researchers call "federated governance" - a model where multiple teams contribute while maintaining consistency through shared principles rather than rigid rules.

Every design system team obsesses over documentation. 

But here's the paradox: the more comprehensive your documentation becomes, the more intimidating it gets for newcomers. 

People don't read manuals when they're trying to ship features quickly. They copy and paste from existing code or ask a colleague for help.

The best design systems understand this reality and design for it. Instead of trying to document every possible scenario, they focus on making the most common use cases dead simple. 

Provide starter templates, create helpful defaults, and build components that are hard to use incorrectly. 

IBM's Carbon Design System does this brilliantly. 

Their components come with smart defaults that work for most use cases, but they're flexible enough to accommodate edge cases without breaking the system's consistency. 

More importantly, when teams do need to extend components, the system provides clear patterns for doing so in a way that remains maintainable.

One trend that's fascinating to watch is how teams are starting to automate design system compliance. 

A good example of this is Figma’s Design Lint. 

Instead of relying on manual reviews and documentation, they're building tools that automatically check for design system violations in both code and design files. 

It's like having a helpful colleague who gently taps you on the shoulder when you're about to use the wrong shade of blue.

But the most effective automated tools focus on reducing friction rather than enforcing rules. 

They suggest better alternatives instead of just flagging violations. When a designer uses a custom color, instead of just saying "This isn't in our color palette," the tool might suggest "This is close to our Primary Blue 500 - did you mean to use that instead?"

This approach acknowledges that people sometimes break system rules for good reasons. 

The goal isn't to eliminate all deviations - it's to make intentional choices visible and easy to learn from.

Most design system teams measure the wrong things. 

They count component usage, track adoption percentages, and celebrate when their Figma library gets more downloads. 

But these metrics don't actually tell you whether the system is successful. 

You can have 100% adoption and still fail if people are using your components to build terrible experiences.

The teams that build truly impactful design systems measure outcomes, not outputs. 

They track things like cross-team collaboration frequency, time-to-market for new features, and designer-developer satisfaction scores. 

They ask questions like: "Are teams shipping higher quality products faster?" and "Do people feel more confident in their design decisions?"

Something magical happens when design systems reach critical mass: they start creating network effects. 

Teams begin building on each other's work, sharing patterns, and collaborating in ways that weren't possible before. 

The system becomes less like a toolkit and more like a platform that enables innovation.

This is where the real ROI of design systems emerges. 

It's not just about efficiency or consistency - it's about unlocking new forms of collaboration. 

When teams share a common foundation, they can focus their creative energy on solving unique problems rather than rebuilding basic components from scratch.

The most successful companies I've studied treat their design systems as internal products with their own roadmaps, user research, and success metrics. 

They invest in them not as cost centers but as platforms that enable their entire organization to move faster and more confidently.

The next evolution of design systems will be about building better collaboration models. 

We're moving toward federated systems where multiple teams contribute while maintaining coherence through shared principles and automated quality checks.

This requires new tools, new processes, and most importantly, new ways of thinking about ownership and control. 

The most forward-thinking teams are experimenting with AI-powered tools that can suggest improvements, automate routine maintenance, and even generate new components based on emerging patterns in the codebase.

But technology alone won't solve the fundamental challenge of design systems: getting people to work together effectively. 

The systems that will thrive in the coming years are those that embrace this reality and design for human collaboration from the ground up.

The most beautiful design system in the world is worthless if nobody uses it. But a humble collection of components that helps people work better together would be transformative.

Design systems are more about perfecting collaboration than pixels. 

And that's a much more interesting challenge.

Keep designing,
Dianne :)