#designsystems (204 links)
- Design Systems for AI Agents lukew.com
Design teams have spent years trying to get people to actually read their design system documentation. Agents read it every single time.
- UI components for AI agents aicss.dev
Everything an agent shows mid-conversation: thinking states, tool calls, streaming text, tables and more.
Via monospaced.
The bet is that discovery won’t start on homepages or even in search boxes, but with AI intermediaries acting on a user’s behalf. As Josh Muncke, vp of generative AI at The Economist Group, told Digiday, the publisher is preparing for “a world with two versions of the web” — one optimized for rich, human reading experiences, and another where “agents want clear structure, questions and answers, ideally text,” not carousels and feature art.
Also...
In areas that touch reader experience, editorial staff are embedded directly in those pods to ensure AI-powered features still “retain the look, feel, style, tone of The Economist,” per Muncke.
- The State of AI in Design Systems: What the data actually says webinars.zeroheight.com
- How Context Cascades southleft.substack.com
A clean design system behaves like well-structured CSS. Inheritance flows, overrides are rare, and each layer respects the next. Here's how that mindset holds up in an agentic AI world.
- Context-Based Design Systems, Revisited southleft.substack.com
A year into the AI-driven design systems era, the framework holds up. Here's what's changed, what's clearer, and why context still beats autonomy.
- Claude Design Is Not a Design Systems Tool. That's Okay. southleft.substack.com
Claude Design isn’t a Figma killer, and I don’t think it’s trying to be. It’s a different tool, pointing at a different problem, and most of the loud takes claiming otherwise haven’t actually used it for design systems work.
- Expose your design system to LLMs hvpandya.com
The method described here restructures your design system into a format LLMs can reliably consume: structured spec files, a closed token layer, and automated auditing that catches every violation.
Feels like a consolidation piece rather than breaking new ground but interesting nonetheless.
- Beyond Components: Building a Design Language System at Scale | Design Systems Collective designsystemscollective.com
Most “design systems” stop at components. A Design Language System (DLS) defines the language your components and teams speak: design tokens as the vocabulary and semantic HTML/CSS as the grammar, implemented in the layout layer as a stable framework-agnostic DOM + token contract.
- Lies, damned lies, and design system adoption statistics iknowdavehouse.medium.com
Tokenscript is a dsl that interprets design tokens.
- Extended Collections are here. And you can’t have them designsystemscollective.com
- False Tokens | Figma figma.com
False Tokens helps maintain design system consistency by instantly finding elements that aren't using design tokens.
When systems try to meet everyone's needs, they don't stand for anything unique. Without a strong opinion, you can have an infinitely flexible but ultimately forgettable set of rules and constraints.
- Design System Generations medium.com
How to discuss and describe a design system’s biggest changes
- Patterns in Design Systems iknowdavehouse.medium.com
A few years ago, while working on the GOV.UK Design System I spent probably a little too much time thinking about the differences between Components and Patterns.
A bit listicle but some fine examples.
Establishing a standardized design system lexicon
- A lean approach to design systems thoughtbot.com
A Minimum Viable Design System (MVDS) is the smallest set of design standards, components, and guidelines that can effectively create consistency and efficiency in a product. It’s the design system equivalent of a Minimum Viable Product – just enough to start providing value, with room to grow and evolve as your product grows.
- The Middle Management of a Design System Program sparkbox.com
The shape of your design system team and the hierarchy it falls within can greatly impact the way you approach the work. A key role to the success of your program is the middle manager.
- The Design System Priority of Constituencies cloudfour.com
- Testing design systems in 2025 - Reshaped reshaped.so
My ultimate goal after testing was to see if I can completely drop jest and react-testing-library dependencies. Storybook already provides sufficient Vitest bindings and integrations with other packages, allowing me to mock handlers, trigger user events, and handle async operations — all within the same environment.
- Design Systems ◆ 24 ways 24ways.org
Somehow missed this first time round.
Good thoughts about design systems being basically a platform function.
- The Sorry State of States medium.com
Today’s Figma assets show design could align better with code
- A mode too far iknowdavehouse.medium.com
Problems using Figma variable modes for multiple brands.
- Subcomponents. Relinquish control, offer parts, and… | by Nathan Curtis | EightShapes | Medium medium.com
For most design systems, solving for every feature to support every case is a fool’s errand. Yet, design system practitioners cringe when a designer detaches a Figma component or developer codes a component from scratch.
Another classic from Nathan
- “The Design System Isn't Working for Me!” bigmedium.com
How to manage bugs, missing features, intentional design deviations, new patterns, and more.
- The Fallacy of Federated Design Systems medium.com
Avoid the damage and distress of glorifying the wrong model
- Design systems should do less - by Josh Cusick joshcusick.substack.com
Strongly feeling the "design systems should do as much as makes sense and no more" and the "design system teams should try to avoid building the entire UI for their organisation" problems.
- Going offroad for a better design system uxdesign.cc
Building flexible design systems just like my Nissan Xterra.
- Figma Variables at Vodafone UK: how we structured taxonomy for a complex multi-brand design system medium.com
Good tip on “free” wireframe brand.
- Mise en mode mode.place
The following is a recap of a year long research and development journey revealing a method to take semantic responsibility away from design tokens.
- Truly Semantic blog.damato.design
The purpose of this article is to be clear about which tokens are best used directly in the experience from other tokens that can be used for organizational purposes.
- Dynamic Pictograms For Design Systems carbonemike.com
How to prepare pictograms for design systems by handling variable brand and skin colors.
Frontend designers create the HTML, CSS, and presentational JavaScript code that powers web products’ user interfaces. I see frontend design as helpful mortar that bridges the gap between design and development.
Go for not too specific, not too general.
- Are Design Systems a zero-interest rate phenomenon? daverupert.com
Times I’ve seen executive buy-in go smoothest are when a person in a position of power cares about design and says, “Our app looks like shit.” Now it’s a hair on fire problem.
- Supernova supernova.io
Supernova connects your design and engineering data in a single design system tool to accelerate and scale your product development.
- Thoughts on a Global Design System chriscoyier.net