How do you handle a product team requesting a custom Button?

WHAT THIS TESTS: This tests your ability to balance product velocity with design system integrity by using a systematic approach rather than ad-hoc exceptions. Interviewers want to see that you can distinguish between a team misusing an existing pattern and a legitimate gap that requires a documented design decision, while avoiding never-ending discussions.

A GOOD ANSWER COVERS: A strong answer walks through a clear sequence. First, ask context-related questions before jumping to a solution, just as the Workday team does before using their decision trees. You want to understand the user flow and whether the existing Button variants were actually considered. Second, apply a decision tree mindset for actions and CTAs, drawing from Doctolib's Actions and Calls To Actions decision tree, to determine if the need maps to an existing pattern or requires a new variant. Third, if the need is genuinely unique, evaluate whether it should become a new documented variant with guidelines and examples, or if the system itself should evolve. Fourth, involve stakeholders to document the decision so future teams avoid confusion and repeating the same debate.

COMMON WRONG ANSWERS: A major red flag is immediately greenlighting a one-off custom button that lives outside the system, which fragments the UI and invites inconsistency. Another weak pattern is insisting the product team must use the existing Button without investigation, which ignores real needs and erodes trust. A third red flag is proposing a system change without any guidelines or examples, which simply delays the chaos.

LIKELY FOLLOW-UPS: An interviewer might push on how you handle two product teams making conflicting requests for the same component. They could also ask how you prioritize system work when multiple teams claim their need is unique. Another follow-up is how you measure whether a new variant is actually being adopted or if it was unnecessary.

ONE CONCRETE EXAMPLE: Imagine a team says they need a larger Button for a marketing landing page. Instead of building a one-off, you ask context questions about viewport constraints and whether this is a campaign-specific need or a permanent surface, similar to Workday's context-related questions. You run it through an actions and CTAs decision tree and discover it is actually a call-to-action that should align with the system's existing CTA pattern rather than the standard Button. You work with design to document the exception with guidelines and examples, and update the decision tree so the next team does not need to ask.

Source: smashingmagazine.com