Rethinking Design Systems

Design systems are introduced for consistency and efficiency, but as an organization grows, the system's constraints can become obstacles to product development. The moment a product team bypasses the system by detaching a Figma component or forking a package to modify it locally, fragments disconnected from the system emerge, and consistency breaks down.

To solve this, a shift in perspective is needed: viewing the design system not as a mere collection of rules, but as a Product that solves the problems of its users. The key is designing to reduce reasons to bypass the system, rather than strengthening control.

A component's extensibility is determined by its API design pattern.

• Flat pattern: Hides the internal structure and provides variations via props. Usage is intuitive, but there's a limitation where props can grow infinitely when unforeseen requirements arise.
• Compound pattern: Provides sub-components for product teams to compose directly. It offers high flexibility and clear extension points, but implementation difficulty and code volume may increase.