More in Design Systems — page 3
SemVer bump for a non-breaking bug fix
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you know SemVer's three levels. OUTLINE: A backward-compatible bug fix is a PATCH, the third number; major is breaking, minor is new compatible features. RED FLAG: Calling a fix a minor or bumping major out of caution.
Quantifying the cost of a missing component
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you justify investment with evidence of waste. OUTLINE: Scan repos for duplicate hand-rolled tables, count implementations and lines, estimate redundant build and maintenance hours plus defect rates.
Isolating the design system's velocity impact
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you can argue causation, not correlation. OUTLINE: Use comparison groups, difference-in-differences or before-after baselines, and control for confounders; cite mechanism data like component reuse.
Constructing a design system ROI formula
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you can frame the system as an investment. OUTLINE: ROI equals (benefits minus cost) over cost; benefits from time saved, defect reduction, and faster onboarding; gather data via analytics and tickets.
Quantifying migration cost for a major release
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you can estimate and measure migration effort. OUTLINE: Pre-release, scan codebases for affected usages and estimate engineer-hours; post-release, track actual upgrade lead time and effort.
Designing a UI consistency score
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you can quantify consistency objectively. OUTLINE: Combine signals like token vs hard-coded values, design-system vs off-system components, and override rates, then automate via AST scans and CI.
Tracking design system adoption technically
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you can instrument adoption with real data. OUTLINE: Scan codebases for component imports via AST, compute adoption versus off-system usage, and aggregate into a dashboard over time.
Governance model for specialized contributions
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you can govern contributions of varied scope. OUTLINE: Define a governance model, RFC and shared-need gate, tiered intake (core vs community), CI and CODEOWNERS review, then versioned release.
Essential docs for onboarding a new team
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you can make a system self-serve. OUTLINE: Getting-started guide, per-component API and usage docs, design guidelines and tokens, plus changelog and migration notes.
Bug report to deployed fix workflow
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you have a disciplined bug-fix pipeline. OUTLINE: Triage and reproduce, write a failing test, fix it, pass CI gates and review, then patch-release and notify.
Designing a component deprecation process
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you can retire a component without breaking consumers. OUTLINE: Announce with a replacement and timeline, mark deprecated with runtime and lint warnings, provide codemods, then remove only in a major release.
Classifying a visually breaking padding change
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you grasp that visual changes can be breaking. OUTLINE: A layout-shifting padding change is effectively breaking, so major; release with visual diffs, a migration note, and a token or opt-in path.
Purpose and key sections of CONTRIBUTING.md
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you lower the barrier to good contributions. OUTLINE: It documents how to contribute; key sections are setup and dev workflow, contribution process and standards, and review and release expectations.
Deciding whether a one-off variant belongs in core
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you guard the core against bloat. OUTLINE: Weigh reuse and consistency against maintenance cost, then decide with a shared-need bar and escape hatches for local cases. RED FLAG: Reflexively adding every requested variant to core.
Contributor workflow from proposal to merge
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you know the end-to-end contributor path. OUTLINE: Proposal or RFC, design and core alignment, branch and build with tests and docs, review, then merge and release. RED FLAG: Opening a PR for a new component with no prior alignment.
Reversing stagnating design system adoption
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you treat adoption as a product problem. OUTLINE: Find friction via interviews, reduce it with DX, codemods, and docs, then prove value with adoption and velocity metrics.
Building a design system quarterly roadmap
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you prioritize with evidence, not opinion. OUTLINE: Combine usage and adoption data, support tickets, stakeholder interviews, and a debt ledger into a scored backlog with a deliberate debt allocation.
Designing a contribution model with quality gates
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you can open contributions without losing quality. OUTLINE: Define a federated model, branch-and-PR flow, required reviews, and automated gates for tests, a11y, and visual regression.
Process for adding a new component
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you have a repeatable intake-to-release process. OUTLINE: Triage need, design and spec, build with a11y and tests, document, version, and release. RED FLAG: Letting teams build one-offs with no review or shared ownership.
Core roles on a design system team
WHAT IT TESTS: Whether you see a design system as a product. OUTLINE: Name design, engineering, product/PM, and accessibility/docs roles with clear ownership. RED FLAG: Treating it as a side project with no dedicated owners.