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Building a New Home for the Atlassian Design System
Summary
Having a design system is a de facto necessity when building cohesive enterprise software. The challenge is how does it all come together with a single location, a source of truth, a website? How does a cross-functional team marshal the resources with political and technical willpower to achieve this goal? It’s no easy feat as Jennie Yip, Atlassian design systems lead, explains in this Medium essay. This fireside chat will dig deeper into the problems addressed and lessons learned, with Jennie and also Charles Lee, the engineering lead. Hearing their stories will inspire and inform all of us in our design system journeys. We hope you will join us!
Key Insights
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Multiple sources of truth in design systems cause inconsistencies and confusion, as seen with the button component font weight differences across specs, design files, and code.
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Design systems should treat code as the source of truth while making design tools like Figma an integrated extension of that truth.
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The Constellation project aims to create a single, consistent destination for design and development documentation, consolidating 50+ guidelines and 27 out of 60 components.
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Collaboration between designers and engineers early in the process is critical to align priorities, avoid scope creep, and build trust.
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Governance in design systems works best as shared execution through community trust and enabling teams, rather than policing or harsh compliance enforcement.
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Workshops and detailed documentation are essential for onboarding new team members quickly and preserving knowledge amid team changes.
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Live code examples embedded in documentation reduce maintenance burdens and ensure consumers always see current component behavior.
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Versioning pace needs balancing—too frequent releases burden product teams trying to keep up and can hinder adoption.
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Research methods like card sorting and usability testing directly influence information architecture and navigation improvements in the new documentation.
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Buy-in from leadership and stakeholders grew through repeated demos and a unified team vision, highlighting the value and reducing skepticism over time.
Notable Quotes
"We kept feeling the same consistent pain around some truths for our design system."
"Kate said she considers live code to be the source of truth because she can't trust the design site due to inconsistencies."
"Code is definitely considered the source of truth; we're working hard to make Figma an extension of that."
"Governance is not policing; we're here to help you create the best experience and save time."
"Workshops often reveal gaps in documentation, which is a spicy take but true."
"It's really about finding a way to link all the different aspects to bring everything together to tell the story."
"Continuous adaptation is key; you're adapting to the system as much as adopting it."
"If you can't get buy-in for collaboration between engineers and designers, start from the bottom and talk more early and often."
"Updating and adopting design system components is company time, so a slower release schedule helps teams keep up."
"We absolutely need feedback loops so engineers and designers can influence the design system and keep it relevant."
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