Checkpoint: What a Design System Really Is

Question 1 of 5

• After launch nobody owns bugs, requests or releases, so teams start patching their own copies.
• Three months is too short to build any components.
• Launch parties make adoption mandatory, which teams resent.
• Design systems should be built by product teams, not design leads.

Question 2 of 5

• Tooltips first, because they’re the quickest win.
• Tables first, because they’re the hardest component.
• All three at once to show the system’s full scope.
• Greys first, then tables, then tooltips.

Question 3 of 5

• Our UI is clean and modern.
• We value collaboration between design and engineering.
• Fewer, better components: extend an existing one before adding a near-duplicate.
• Every product team should feel ownership of the system.

Question 4 of 5

• Centralized; the system team becomes a bottleneck.
• Solitary; the system reflects one team’s needs and others drift as they adapt copies.
• Federated; contributions stall because nobody reviews them.
• Hybrid; the core and contributors disagree about direction.

Question 5 of 5

• Three distinct greys, exactly as typed.
• One grey, because they all look the same.
• Nothing yet; greys don’t matter until components exist.
• Two values after normalizing case, flagged as one near-duplicate cluster for designers to consolidate.