And while this is certainly a positive thing in many ways, it puts us in a riskier position when it comes to communicating our work.

Why? Because the only thing more dangerous to a design system’s funding case than a lack of understanding of what it is, is a false understanding of what it is. Particularly when that false understanding is often built on a collection of common myths that have elbowed their way, without nuance, into the psyche of our organisations’ leaders. Myths like:

• 10x faster
• don't need a design system team
• design system eradicate duplication effort
• bake accessibility into components and the job is done