Enabling, not enforcing with Design Systems

An approach that invites people to love it.

Many design systems fail to gain meaningful adoption. Not because they’re bad, but because they’re forced up front.

You’ve seen it before. A design system is built with care, polished in Figma, and launched with high hopes… and then? Adoption lags. Designers work around it. Engineers create their own solutions (sometimes faking visual adoption). Why? Because the moment you tell people they have to do something, they start looking for ways not to do it.

The best design systems don’t need to enforce adoption; they earn it. Instead of forcing teams into compliance, the system provides value so obvious that teams want to use them. They aren’t rigid rulebooks; they’re like products that need to compete for adoption.

So what makes a design system worth using? And how do you shift from enforcement to enablement? The answer isn’t more rules or a firm hand, it’s apparent value.

Here’s how to think differently about creating design systems that people actually want to use.

👉 7 min read

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Also, this is the first in a series of articles on design systems. If you have topics you’d like me to explore, feel free to leave a comment or note!