Build and keep design systems alive with AI
I've built design systems alone from scratch, and kept components alive inside a large org including using AI to help maintain and ship the update.
Here's what the work looked like, and where I think system governance needs to go next.
Built alone
I owned the design system end to end for Golden Ridge (an early stage startup) and Trustie (an early incubation product by Länsförsäkringar) including tokens, type scale, icon library, component states.
Both products shipped on top of it.
Components shipped inside a larger system
At Volvo, I shipped and mainained two components without adding duplication in the system: a safety score view and a list view with score in Volvo’s shared component library.
I audited the existing system before building anything new. The component inherits same standard as the rest of the system: platform status, states, motion, accessibility, do's and don'ts.
Keep it up-to-date with AI
When the design system pushed a new color and type standard, I used AI to implement the update to the score component's code, and reviewed the update with engineering team. The change was merged and shipped on iOS and Android.
What’s next
AI can already catch a lot of what review cycles exist to catch. It’s worth building a lightweight workflow using skills and evals so consistency gets checked and executed automatically, not in endless meetings and reviews.