Failed Design Systems

In this year’s international design systems survey, conducted by the Sparkbox (https://designsystemsurvey.sparkbox.com/2022/), only 65% of respondents agreed with the sentence: “The design system meets my needs”.

While there is a range of resources showcasing successful design systems, the remaining 35% are often not accounted for. While it is understandable that few teams (or individuals) would publish examples of their ventures into design systems that ended in failure, this results in more than a third of all attempts at design systems being excluded from the discussion at large. This talk covers common themes and insights gained from anonymous interviews conducted with various practitioners and team-members involved in design systems that ended in failure.