Forkable design

This talk is a case study of building and maintaining a design system at an open-source company. I'll share why we decided to invest in a design system, the process we followed, the challenges we encountered, and the lessons we learned along the way.

As our design system matured, another interesting shift emerged. The same structure that helped humans collaborate more effectively also made it easier to integrate AI-assisted workflows into our product development process.

Topics covered:

• Why we decided to build a design system

• The process of creating and maintaining it

• Challenges, trade-offs, and mistakes we made

• How design systems improve collaboration between designers and engineers

• Why design systems encourage designers to think more like engineers and engineers to think more like product builders

• The impact of a design system on product development velocity

• How structured systems naturally support AI-assisted workflows

• Lessons learned from evolving the system over time

• Why the design and design system at Ente is FOSS

• Pros and cons of an open source figma file

• Understand the process of building and maintaining a design system in an open-source company

• Learn the challenges, trade-offs, and mistakes involved in creating a design system

• Understand how design systems improve collaboration between designers and engineers

• Learn why open-source design systems require different considerations than internal systems

• Gain insights into maintaining an open-source Figma file and engaging with the community

• Understand how structured systems influence product development workflows

• Learn how design systems can support AI-assisted prototyping and experimentation

• Explore how the boundaries between design and engineering are becoming increasingly blurred