Crafting Cohesion A Design System Journey Without a Dedicated Team
summary
Four-year report of a design system built while R&D grows from 10 to 80: a component library uses Material UI wrapped in a private package with styled‑components overrides and snapshot testing for updates; docs use Storybook as single source of truth mirrored in Figma; governance runs via a cross‑discipline task force that starts as one hour/week and becomes a 15‑minute async sync; decisions favor small, split components, limited overrides, and roadmaped big changes — the system scales and reduces friction without a dedicated team.
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chapters (12)
- 0:00Introduction and context
- 1:10Starting the design system
- 3:36Building components with Material UI
- 6:42Early design system MVP
- 8:28Facing growing pains
- 9:11Creating the task force
- 13:27Defining design system goals
- 15:14Design side improvements
- 16:38Documentation and alignment
- 18:42Evolving the process
- 20:31Design ownership changes
- 22:00Key learnings and takeaways
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