More in Design Systems — page 5
Designing a multi-step wizard form pattern
WHAT IT TESTS: orchestrating multi-step flow plus per-step state. OUTLINE: a wizard controller owns step index and shared data, each step validates itself and reports up, accumulated data persists across steps.
Architecting a composable DataTable API
WHAT IT TESTS: avoiding prop-bloat in a complex component. OUTLINE: separate a headless data/state core from rendering, use a column-definition config with custom cell renderers, expose composition over dozens of flags.
The slots pattern for a PageLayout component
WHAT IT TESTS: named composition regions. OUTLINE: slots are named insertion points so a layout owns structure while consumers fill header, sidebar, and main, via named props or compound subcomponents.
Decoupling Form state from its Field components
WHAT IT TESTS: shared form state without coupling. OUTLINE: Form holds values, errors, and status in context, Fields self-register and read/write via a hook, validation composes per field. RED FLAG: the Form enumerating every specific field it contains.
Designing a Modal with controlled open state
WHAT IT TESTS: controlled state plus content injection. OUTLINE: parent owns isOpen and onClose, portal renders content with focus trap, children for static content, render prop when content needs modal state.
Designing a responsive Grid with breakpoint props
WHAT IT TESTS: abstracting responsive CSS behind a clean API. OUTLINE: accept per-breakpoint column props, map them to CSS Grid and media queries or container queries, expose a gap prop. RED FLAG: leaking raw media-query CSS to every consumer.
Building a flexible Card with optional content
WHAT IT TESTS: flexible component APIs via props or composition. OUTLINE: use optional props or named slots for image, title, and text, conditionally render present ones, and prefer composition for ordering.
Composing Input and Button into a SearchForm
WHAT IT TESTS: basic composition and component API design. OUTLINE: wrap Input and Button in a form, expose value/placeholder props, emit onSearch on submit, keep it controlled. RED FLAG: duplicating Input and Button logic instead of reusing them.
Headless components and a headless Combobox
WHAT IT TESTS: separating behavior from presentation. OUTLINE: a headless component owns state, logic, and accessibility but renders no UI, exposing state and prop-getters so consumers supply markup.
Architecting global and local theming with context
WHAT IT TESTS: layered theming via context. OUTLINE: a top-level provider supplies global tokens, nested providers merge local overrides, components read the nearest theme, often backed by CSS variables. RED FLAG: passing theme through props at every level.
Choosing a spacing scale for a design system
WHAT IT TESTS: turning spacing into a consistent system. OUTLINE: a numeric base-grid gives predictable math, semantic t-shirt names give readable intent, often combine them. RED FLAG: free-form pixel values with no scale or rationale.
Component Stability Index
A component stability index is a maturity signal that tells consumers how safe a design-system component is to use, from experimental to stable to deprecated, setting expectations about API churn and supporting confident adoption decisions.
Automated Release Pipeline
An automated release pipeline turns merged design-system changes into published, versioned packages without manual steps, using semantic versioning and changelogs so consumers can upgrade safely and the team ships small changes frequently and reliably.
Structuring color tokens for a new app
WHAT IT TESTS: tiered color-token architecture and why layering matters. OUTLINE: primitive palette, semantic role tokens, optional component tokens, theming benefit. RED FLAG: a flat list of named colors with no semantic layer, blocking theming and dark mode.
A simple automatable metric for dev-time savings
WHAT IT TESTS: choosing one practical, automatable ROI proxy. OUTLINE: component coverage or cycle time, gathered automatically, compared across adoption levels. RED FLAG: proposing a metric that needs manual surveys or cannot actually be automated.
Framework-agnostic components across React, Vue, Angular
WHAT IT TESTS: cross-framework component strategy and its trade-offs. OUTLINE: web components for one core, framework wrappers for ergonomics, codegen as an alternative, with their costs.
Documentation for a new Card component
WHAT IT TESTS: complete component docs, not just an API table. OUTLINE: usage guidance and do/don't, variants, accessibility, code examples, composition. RED FLAG: shipping only a props table with no when-to-use, accessibility, or examples.
Design tokens for multi-brand button theming
WHAT IT TESTS: token fundamentals and tiered theming. OUTLINE: tokens as named design decisions, primitive-versus-semantic layers, per-brand themes mapping semantic to primitive. RED FLAG: hardcoding hex values per brand instead of a shared semantic token.
End-to-end process for a Modal props API break
WHAT IT TESTS: the full lifecycle of a breaking API change. OUTLINE: justify and design the change, additive rollout with deprecation, major release plus codemod, comms and adoption tracking.
Measuring designer efficiency from Figma data
WHAT IT TESTS: quantifying design-side ROI with real instrumentation. OUTLINE: library component usage and detach rates from Figma, time-to-mockup, override frequency via the API. RED FLAG: measuring only code adoption and ignoring the design tool entirely.