The Question: Design System Collaborative Learning

Ben Callahan

The Question is a collaborative learning podcast about Design Systems. Smart people like you sign up, answer a few niche questions about design systems for each episode, and then we all get together to unpack the data we've gathered. Each week, I'll invite a new co-host to help facilitate the conversation. After the deep dive, the co-host and I record a recap of what we learned. That means, for each episode, you can listen to the recap and the full deep dive! If you're a design system practitioner, subscribe today (https://bencallahan.com/the-question) to receive an invitation to each episode. This only works if the community joins in! Stay in learning mode ❤️

  1. Episode 076 Recap: Enabling Craft Through a Design System with Ben Callahan and ToniAnn Drenckhahn

    29 min ago ·  Bonus

    Episode 076 Recap: Enabling Craft Through a Design System with Ben Callahan and ToniAnn Drenckhahn

    Episode 076 Recap: Enabling Craft Through a Design System with Ben Callahan and ToniAnn DrenckhahnBen Callahan and ToniAnn Drenckhahn recorded this recap the morning after their community deep dive, reflecting on what stood out from the data and the conversation. The survey went out to 1,105 design system practitioners; 64 responded. Topics include the distinction between craft and quality, two frameworks for thinking about how systems enable craft, the role of leadership in setting a craft culture, and how AI is complicating the idea of what it means to make something well. Show Notes0:02 — Ben introduces ToniAnn and the episode topic0:30 — Overview of the four survey questions3:20 — Survey methodology: 1,105 practitioners, 64 responses3:48 — ToniAnn on her expectations for the results4:05 — Tension around whether teaching craft is the DS team's job5:26 — Org size and career stage as factors in that tension6:57 — Teaching craft requires becoming educators, not just practitioners7:38 — Natural leaders and the weight of carrying craft alone8:11 — Distinguishing craft from quality: craft as input, quality as output10:55 — ToniAnn: craft is care embedded throughout the process, not just polish12:01 — Donnie's framing: craft is subjective, quality is objective12:17 — Sean's point: craft means something different for each role13:59 — AI enters: can AI produce quality without craft?15:32 — ToniAnn: craft requires care — and AI doesn't care17:08 — ToniAnn on why she resists calling AI output "crafted"19:11 — Googling the definition: "made with high skill, care, or ingenuity"19:45 — Craft requires sentience; quality may not20:39 — The order of operations framework: define quality first, then offer21:33 — When teams skip the definition and offer assets first23:08 — Leadership's role in setting and calibrating the craft bar24:06 — The build-vs-buy question and what it reveals about craft25:18 — The floor-ceiling framework: DS raises the floor, product teams set the ceiling26:38 — ToniAnn: the system as quality floor, not limiting factor27:35 — AI as a tool to test the ceiling and inform what gets encoded28:33 — ToniAnn: "Full freedom. Please do it."29:39 — Competing values framework: system teams shifting from internal to external orientation30:51 — ToniAnn on the "hold the line" era and how posture has evolved33:29 — The vision for the system has to be bigger than components34:40 — ToniAnn's takeaway: lean into the floor-ceiling narrative next week35:49 — Closing reflections from Ben and ToniAnn Where to Find the HostsBen Callahan is Founder of Sparkbox (https://sparkbox.com) and Redwoods Design System Community (https://bencallahan.com/redwoods). Read his writings, have him present at your event, or engage with him as a coach or consultant at https://bencallahan.com ToniAnn Drenckhahn is a design systems leader currently at Etsy, previously at BetMGM. Connect with ToniAnn: https://bit.ly/ToniAnnLinkedin Get the Raw DataAccess the complete survey data from Episode 076 to conduct your own analysis: https://bit.ly/4vb9Cuh Review the FigJam NotesDig into the collaborative notes we took as a community during the deep dive: https://bit.ly/4a5V6LP Join the ConversationThe Question explores design systems topics through community research and deep-dive discussions. Participate in future episodes and contribute to the next survey: https://bit.ly/answerTheQuestion

    37 min
  2. Episode 076 Deep Dive: Enabling Craft Through a Design System with Ben Callahan and ToniAnn Drenckhahn

    39 min ago

    Episode 076 Deep Dive: Enabling Craft Through a Design System with Ben Callahan and ToniAnn Drenckhahn

    Episode 076 Deep Dive: Enabling Craft Through a Design System with Ben Callahan and ToniAnn Drenckhahn Ben Callahan is joined by ToniAnn Drenckhahn, a design systems leader currently at Etsy and formerly at BetMGM, where her work on primitive components and foundational design quality prompted this episode's question. The survey drew 64 responses from 1,105 practitioners and surfaced a striking finding: not a single respondent said their organization has no craft gap. Topics include a floor-ceiling framework for how systems teams and product teams share responsibility for craft, the difference between craft and quality, community perspectives on teaching versus encoding, the role of leadership and culture, and what AI means for the future of craft as a human skill. Show Notes0:09 — Ben introduces Episode 076 and co-host ToniAnn Drenckhahn0:46 — ToniAnn on what led her to this topic: BetMGM, Etsy, and AI pressure1:49 — The arc from policing to enabling — and the pendulum swinging back2:25 — Survey overview: four questions, 1,105 practitioners, 64 responses4:46 — Ben's read of the data: "accumulated realism"5:15 — Zero respondents said their org has no craft gap5:44 — Time and authority: the two blockers named most6:42 — 72% said teach and encode both; 67% rely on opinionated components8:11 — 70% cited no shared definition or speed pressure as the root cause8:39 — ToniAnn introduces the floor-ceiling framework9:36 — Ben: the floor is what we build in; the ceiling is how it gets used10:32 — Mike Riley on the wide quality gap between adopters using the same components12:21 — Janesa Chan on guiding consumers through the contribution process13:48 — Janesa Chan on educational techniques that ebb and flow14:48 — Ilya Grey on views, floor plans, and embracing the front-end stack16:24 — ToniAnn on co-designing screens and templates with consuming teams17:21 — Vision has to go beyond components17:49 — Shaun Bent on culture and department leadership overriding education18:48 — Lauren on hiring visual designers with a systems mindset19:45 — Lauren: before that, the feedback loop was too big20:39 — Lauren on closing the loop when teams deviate (data viz token example)22:09 — Jesse James: encoding is tactical and measurable; culture takes time22:38 — Jesse James: craft is like authenticity — it takes time to become the team's voice23:36 — Greg Johnson on system maturity, adoption, and finding patterns in the wild25:54 — The order of operations diagram: offer first vs. define first26:21 — Flipping the order: define quality, then offer27:18 — What happens when systems teams only offer the basics28:16 — Workshop approaches for building a shared definition of quality28:49 — ToniAnn on the BetMGM vision work and staying out of the way30:12 — Ilya Grey on customer expectations as a layer above the quality ceiling30:41 — Robin Di Capua on defining quality across departments32:07 — Caroline Horn: what customers actually said quality means to them34:17 — Donnie D'Amato: craft is subjective, quality is objective35:15 — Donnie on the button example: readable labels vs. border radius36:40 — Robin on how even "objective" quality resists consensus38:06 — Donnie on design attractors and the best button42:18 — Peter Allen: DS solves 80% of problems, but craft still matters in the 20%42:58 — Ben: does AI lower the need to learn design at all?44:21 — Automating craft vs. automating the basics45:20 — Derek Onay: does encoding lower the skill, or free up time for it?46:44 — Ilya Grey: high-taste environments improve taste over time47:34 — ToniAnn's closing thought: using AI to democratize education, not just speed48:49 — Ashley and Casey's series on education in design systems49:18 — Ben wraps up; Donnie previews the Undefined event in NYC Where to Find the HostsBen Callahan is Founder of Sparkbox (https://sparkbox.com) and Redwoods Design System Community (https://bencallahan.com/redwoods). Read his writings, have him present at your event, or engage with him as a coach or consultant at https://bencallahan.com ToniAnn Drenckhahn is a design systems leader currently at Etsy, previously at BetMGM. Connect with ToniAnn: https://bit.ly/ToniAnnLinkedin Get the Raw DataAccess the complete survey data from Episode 076 to conduct your own analysis: https://bit.ly/4vb9Cuh Review the FigJam NotesDig into the collaborative notes we took as a community during the deep dive: https://bit.ly/4a5V6LP Join the ConversationThe Question explores design systems topics through community research and deep-dive discussions. Participate in future episodes and contribute to the next survey: https://bit.ly/answerTheQuestion

    53 min
  3. Episode 075 Recap: The Design System Identity Crisis with Ben Callahan and Cassie Groos

    15 Jun ·  Bonus

    Episode 075 Recap: The Design System Identity Crisis with Ben Callahan and Cassie Groos

    Episode 075 Recap: The Design System Identity Crisis with Ben Callahan and Cassie Groos In this recap of Episode 075, Ben Callahan and Cassie Groos unpack what they learned from the community on the subject of the design system identity crisis. Cassie is preparing a talk on this theme for Hatch Conference in Berlin and used The Question as her research engine. The survey was sent to 1,083 design system practitioners and received 60 responses across five questions: team posture toward AI, belief in the "design systems as AI's necessary foundation" narrative, how roles have changed in the past 12 months, how respondents would redefine a design system today, and the bets they're making that might be wrong by next year. Ben and Cassie dig into what's actually driving AI adoption when only 25% believe it protects their roles, how DS practitioners can use their outsized organizational influence to own the AI quality bar, how the definition of "design system" is quietly expanding to include AI as an audience, and whether writing context files for AI means double work or just different work. Show Notes 00:03 — Welcome and intro 00:18 — Recap of all five survey questions and methodology: 1,083 sent, 60 responses 02:25 — Acknowledging ongoing layoffs and supporting the community 03:34 — A standout open response: "from clear vision to navigating the moment" 04:08 — Cassie's reframe: an opportunity to decide where we end up 04:48 — DS practitioners as an unseen but outsized influence in organizations 06:33 — What's actually happening in Cassie's world right now: architecting under shifting ground 07:40 — The tweet that kicked this all off: "we don't need component libraries anymore" 08:11 — Cassie's talk at Hatch Conference, Berlin, September 18 09:05 — Q1 and Q2 combined: 3 in 4 actively adopting AI; only 1 in 4 believes it protects their role 10:27 — Owning AI workflows as the stronger protection narrative 11:12 — Who's most protected: those managing the AIs and staying in the loop 11:48 — Cassie on going straight in on AI from day one — and why 12:01 — Ben's kids as gen-Z AI skeptics; the ethics of how models are trained 15:04 — Question 4: what even is a design system? Neither of them can answer it cleanly 15:29 — How respondents split: ~half said unchanged, ~40% said definition is expanding, ~12% not ready to define it yet 16:32 — Cassie: at the top level, it's still just a system for designing stuff 17:17 — Skills and agents casually showing up in answers as design system resources 17:23 — Ben on culture as the real substance of a design system program 18:42 — The new work layer: context files, components as data, AI-readable rules 19:58 — Living in the seams: juggling human-serving and AI-serving outputs simultaneously 21:18 — Why visual components won't disappear: people still like to look at things with their eyes 22:46 — Token efficiency and the rising cost of AI: CRDs, compounding context, and who actually pays 23:26 — Cassie: maybe we don't care — and maybe that's fine 24:29 — Cassie's takeaway: want to see more demos and hear what others are actually building 25:24 — Don't let pressure to adopt AI make us abandon our principles on quality and accessibility 27:34 — Does Claude show up in Cassie's morning routine? Yes — Figma work via Claude Code, Copilot at work 29:28 — Closing thanks Where to Find the Hosts Ben Callahan is Founder of Sparkbox (https://sparkbox.com) and Redwoods Design System Community (https://bencallahan.com/redwoods). Read his writings, have him present at your event, or engage with him as a coach or consultant at https://bencallahan.com Cassie Groos is a freelance design systems specialist and senior product designer currently at Unily. Connect with her on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4tsihGU Get the Raw Data Access the complete survey data from Episode 075 to conduct your own analysis: https://bit.ly/4tz9kLX Review the FigJam Notes Dig into the collaborative notes we took as a community during the deep dive: https://bit.ly/42LJtWk Join the Conversation The Question explores design systems topics through community research and deep-dive discussions. Participate in future episodes and contribute to the next survey: https://bit.ly/answerTheQuestion

    30 min
  4. Episode 075 Deep Dive: The Design System Identity Crisis with Ben Callahan and Cassie Groos

    15 Jun

    Episode 075 Deep Dive: The Design System Identity Crisis with Ben Callahan and Cassie Groos

    Episode 075 Deep Dive: The Design System Identity Crisis with Ben Callahan and Cassie Groos In this deep dive, Ben Callahan is joined by Cassie Groos — a freelance design systems specialist whose work spans consultancy, multi-brand systems, and the Hermes-to-Every rebrand — to explore what she calls the design system identity crisis. Cassie comes prepared: she's building out this topic as the focus of an upcoming talk at Hatch conference, and the community survey served as her research engine. The survey was sent to 1,083 design system practitioners and received 60 responses across five questions: team posture toward AI, belief in the "design systems as AI's necessary foundation" narrative, how roles have changed in the past 12 months, how respondents would redefine a design system today, and the bets they're making that might be wrong by next year. The conversation covers layoffs and job market anxiety in the DS community, whether the "moat narrative" holds up under scrutiny, the rising cost of AI tooling and what it means for democratized access to design, and the double work of living in the seam between old and new ways of working. Show Notes 00:06 — Welcome and episode intro 00:41 — Cassie's background: from NectarCard and Sketch symbols to multi-brand CMS-driven systems 03:10 — Connecting with the community and how The Question was designed to serve talks and articles 04:06 — Walking through all five survey questions 05:33 — Survey methodology: 1,083 sent, 60 responses 06:01 — Acknowledging ongoing layoffs and the design systems job market 07:20 — A standout open response: "from clear vision to navigating the moment" 07:46 — Cassie's reframe: this is our opportunity to decide where we end up 08:15 — Q1 results: ~70% leaning in or experimenting carefully 09:08 — Q2 results: 75% say the "DS as AI foundation" narrative won't hold for long 09:37 — Cassie's reaction: DS practitioners are used to being ahead of the curve 11:03 — Protection without job protection: AI still needs systems, but not as many people 17:27 — Stephen Greco on going pedal-to-metal on AI because adopters already are 18:31 — Owning the AI workflow as a competitive advantage: "we're in 30 products already" 19:28 — Pedro Martins on system thinking as a demonstration of AI value 20:26 — The cost of AI and what it means for design system teams 21:22 — Kele on AI shifting from democratization to pay-to-play 23:44 — Ismail Hamila on methodology versus superficial prompting 26:07 — Cassie: DS practitioners can define and own the quality bar for AI component work 27:03 — Peter Allen on cutting token consumption 87% through multi-agent MCP architecture 28:18 — Michael Whitaker on leaning into AI personally after a recent layoff 34:00 — The double-work problem: living in the seam between old and new workflows 34:46 — Cassie: use AI to generate what AI needs; humans still must check the output 35:40 — Hattie Tadsen on AI burnout and the cost of learning-while-reviewing 37:04 — Mike Riley on context-specific prompt files for adopting dev teams 37:33 — Joanna Kirtley on team burnout from constant AI tool churn 38:02 — Kevin on leadership excitement creating downstream pressure on DS readiness 39:14 — Cassie on AI burnout hitting high achievers hardest 41:32 — Stephen Greco on betting that humans won't read docs directly within a year 42:32 — "What do we actually do with all of this?" — new FigJam section for action items 43:59 — Closing thanks and Redwoods demos as a next step 44:27 — Announcements: Muir Woods hike, Sparkbox, Southleft, AI and Design Systems course Where to Find the Hosts Ben Callahan is Founder of Sparkbox (https://sparkbox.com) and Redwoods Design System Community (https://bencallahan.com/redwoods). Read his writings, have him present at your event, or engage with him as a coach or consultant at https://bencallahan.com Cassie Groos is a freelance design systems specialist and senior product designer currently at Unily. Connect with her on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4tsihGU Get the Raw Data Access the complete survey data from Episode 075 to conduct your own analysis: https://bit.ly/4tz9kLX Review the FigJam Notes Dig into the collaborative notes we took as a community during the deep dive: https://bit.ly/42LJtWk Join the Conversation The Question explores design systems topics through community research and deep-dive discussions. Participate in future episodes and contribute to the next survey: https://bit.ly/answerTheQuestion

    48 min
  5. Episode 074 Recap: AI and Design System Visibility with Ben Callahan and Kaelig Deloumeau-Pregent

    13 May ·  Bonus

    Episode 074 Recap: AI and Design System Visibility with Ben Callahan and Kaelig Deloumeau-Pregent

    In this recap of Episode 074, Ben Callahan is joined by Kaelig Deloumeau-Pregent to share what we learned on the subject of AI and design system visibility. The conversation traces a question Kaelig first answered nearly a decade ago at a Salesforce symposium: How do we actually know how our design system is being used? We wondered how that question lands today as AI accelerates content, design, and code production. The survey was sent to over 1,000 design system practitioners and received 78 responses across four questions: (1) current level of visibility into how design system assets are used across disciplines, including by AI; (2) biggest design system concerns as agents and automation produce more content at scale; (3) how the right balance between enforcement and enablement has shifted as AI enters the picture; and (4) the one thing they'd implement today to improve visibility without becoming the design police. Ben and Kaelig dig into a striking correlation between visibility maturity and enforcement-versus-enablement preferences, the "fog of war" metaphor for systems work, why accessibility may not belong inside design systems, and what shifting roles mean for designers in an agent-driven future. Show Notes00:00 — Welcome and reintroducing Kaelig00:28 — The 2016 Salesforce symposium and a decade-old magic wand question03:03 — A business opportunity: cross-discipline visibility tooling03:39 — Walking through the four survey questions and methodology (1,000+ sent, 78 responses)05:53 — Kaelig's in-progress article and crowdsourcing community thinking08:26 — Question 1: Self-reported visibility levels and what surprised us09:14 — Why design systems are for people, and the limits of robotized outreach10:38 — Visibility as stacked layers, not a single maturity rung11:00 — Question 2: When every concern is a top concern12:24 — Why feedback loops may be the most critical concern13:04 — Question 3: The balanced split on enforcement vs. enablement14:35 — Pace layers, time, and when to enforce vs. let people roam16:35 — Does accessibility actually belong inside the design system?18:53 — Design system teams becoming the org's AI product-builder definers19:30 — Educating the designers of tomorrow (including agents)20:30 — The legal-approval bottleneck slowing AI enablement20:55 — A standout open response: lightweight embedded signal collection at the point of consumption21:46 — Just-in-time guidance and bringing developer experience to designers22:31 — Pegah Amadi's Magnolia and weaving signals into workflow23:00 — The "Fog of War" metaphor: attention as a system team's scarcest resource24:48 — Sending scouts: proactive visibility across Slack, Drive, and roadmaps27:03 — De-risking and saying no when the landscape shifts28:30 — Cheap scouting with sentiment analysis and lightweight tooling29:26 — Mapping Question 1 against Question 4: a clear visibility-to-enablement gradient31:22 — Taming chaos vs. the plateau of sameness (Polaris, CalPete, Yesenia)33:20 — Curiosity over policing: the posture of successful system teams34:23 — What this means for designers facing a big role pivot35:10 — Redwoods Community Hike at Muir Woods in June37:11 — Closing thanks Where to Find the HostsBen Callahan is Founder of Sparkbox (https://sparkbox.com) and Redwoods Design System Community (https://bencallahan.com/redwoods). Read his writings, have him present at your event, or engage with him as a coach or consultant at https://bencallahan.com Kaelig Deloumeau-Pregent is a design systems leader with experience at Salesforce, Shopify, and beyond. Connect with him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaelig/ Get the Raw DataAccess the complete survey data from Episode 074 to conduct your own analysis: https://bit.ly/4t4rYv6 Review the FigJam NotesDig into the collaborative notes we took as a community during the deep dive: https://bit.ly/3OWYGk3 Join the ConversationThe Question explores design systems topics through community research and deep-dive discussions. Participate in future episodes and contribute to the next survey: https://bit.ly/answerTheQuestion

    38 min
  6. Episode 074 Deep Dive: AI and Design System Visibility with Ben Callahan and Kaelig Deloumeau-Pregent

    13 May

    Episode 074 Deep Dive: AI and Design System Visibility with Ben Callahan and Kaelig Deloumeau-Pregent

    Episode 074 Deep Dive: AI and Design System Visibility with Ben Callahan and Kaelig Deloumeau-PregentIn this deep dive, Ben Callahan is joined by Kaelig Deloumeau-Pregent—a veteran design system practitioner whose career has spanned the BBC, The Guardian, Financial Times, Salesforce, Shopify, Netlify, and most recently Intuit—to explore the intersection of AI and design system visibility. Kaelig shares how a question raised back in a 2016 design systems symposium ("If you had a magic wand, what would you change?") still resonates today: practitioners want more visibility into how their systems are actually being used. The survey was sent to 1,081 design system practitioners and received 78 responses across four questions: current level of visibility into design system asset usage, biggest concerns as AI agents produce content at scale, how the enforcement vs. enablement balance has shifted with AI, and what one thing they'd implement to improve visibility without becoming the "design police." The conversation explores the "fog of war" metaphor for incomplete knowledge in systems work, the tension between surveillance and creative freedom, librarians vs. police as governance models, and how AI changes who (or what) is deviating from the system. Show Notes00:39 — Kaelig's background: from a French web agency to BBC, Guardian, FT, Salesforce, Shopify, Netlify, and Intuit06:56 — Becoming a systems thinker before "design systems" was a career07:38 — The 2016 magic-wand question and why visibility is still the wish08:34 — Walking through the four survey questions09:22 — Survey methodology: 1,081 practitioners, 78 responses10:04 — Reviewing Q1: most teams have manual or partial visibility, very few have robust automated tracking12:01 — Visibility isn't just internal; the end customer dimension and zombie code12:27 — Q2 results: AI concerns are "all of the above," and Brandon's optimistic reframe13:26 — Q3 results: enforcement vs. enablement is balanced, with 14% choosing "other"14:35 — The "fog of war" metaphor and the risk of a design system surveillance state17:02 — Peter on cultural contracting and counterbalancing forces in an org18:58 — The "helpful Clippy" view: visibility as a signal for better docs and training21:24 — Doug's question: is resistance to tracking a designer-specific concern?22:13 — Greg on discipline, rigidity, and adapting design practices for AI workflows24:22 — Lightweight, embedded signal collection at the point of consumption25:31 — Magnolia and ESLint-style "disable with a reason" patterns for design27:10 — Jeff on measuring adoption and building relationships to capture wins for leadership29:48 — Alexander on percentile-matching to surface emerging patterns and snowflakes32:02 — Pedro on treating deviations as a "confession room," not policing33:53 — The correlation between visibility (Q1) and enablement (Q4) responses35:20 — The "plateau of sameness" and how the design system kicks back at scale36:16 — ToniAnn: less visibility breeds more assumptions; talk to people37:44 — Stephen on AI flipping enforcement toward enablement, and tracking why agents deviate39:41 — Robin on enforcement and enablement as intertwined, not opposing42:00 — Greg on building decision points into AI skills and rules44:57 — Danita: what level of accountability belongs to the human using AI?45:27 — Trust cultures, talent pools, and where the cursor sits on enforcement47:38 — Non-negotiables: accessibility and regulated environments49:01 — Closing announcements: Redwoods Compass alpha, Config hike, Sparkbox, Southleft Where to Find the HostsBen Callahan is Founder of Sparkbox (https://sparkbox.com) and Redwoods Design System Community (https://bit.ly/44lzHL5). Read his writings, have him present at your event, or engage with him as a coach or consultant at https://bencallahan.com Kaelig Deloumeau-Pregent writes about design systems and AI at https://www.kaelig.fr Get the Raw DataAccess the complete survey data from Episode 074 to conduct your own analysis: https://bit.ly/4t4rYv6 Review the FigJam NotesDig into the collaborative notes we took as a community during the deep dive: https://bit.ly/3OWYGk3 Join the ConversationThe Question explores design systems topics through community research and deep-dive discussions. Participate in future episodes and contribute to the next survey: https://bit.ly/answerTheQuestion

    52 min
  7. Episode 073 Recap: Design System AI Automation with Ben Callahan and Davy Fung

    27 Apr ·  Bonus

    Episode 073 Recap: Design System AI Automation with Ben Callahan and Davy Fung

    Episode 073 Recap: Design System AI Automation with Ben Callahan and Davy FungHost Ben Callahan and co-host Davy Fung, a product designer on the Atlassian Design System and host of the Design System Office Hours podcast, sit down immediately following the Episode 073 deep dive to reflect on what they heard from the community. The survey was sent to 1,077 design system practitioners and received 101 responses across four questions: what percentage of your workflow could be automated with AI today; what percentage should be automated; in what areas should we avoid AI automation and why; and what does craft mean to you in a 2026 design systems context. The conversation covers the gap between "could" and "should," the fear of loss embedded in resistance to automation, how process maturity should gate automation decisions, Bill's insight that automating broken processes masks their flaws, and the community's rich catalog of ways AI is already being put to practical, targeted use in design system workflows. Show Notes00:00 - Introduction and episode overview00:14 - Topic recap: AI as automation in design systems, four questions asked01:51 - Davy's starting point: Zero Height report showing 63% not using design system automation02:48 - Top-down AI mandates vs. practical decisions about what to automate03:18 - What's missing from the conversation: automation's impact on human connection rituals03:40 - The "could vs. should" gap: respondents who decreased their answer between Q1 and Q204:00 - What the decreasers said: loss of organizational context, institutional memory, and learning05:01 - Davy's pushback: documented knowledge scales better than single points of contact05:58 - The language of "loss" as sensitivity to losing control, not losing value06:16 - Ben's process maturity model: automate after you've learned the lessons manually07:11 - The risk of skipping straight to AI before understanding the work07:45 - Davy: scalability vs. the trap of being the sole expert in your org08:10 - Bill's insight from the deep dive: automating a process exposes its flaws — AI won't17:24 - Ben recaps Bill's argument: AI is powerful enough to automate things you shouldn't18:40 - Davy on CI pipeline linting: signals over blockers, data over gatekeeping19:55 - Ben: injecting human review earlier in the process keeps the PR doing its job20:35 - FigJam roundup: how community members are already using AI for automation21:00 - Use cases shared: single-use plugins, token automation, GitHub workflows, dashboards, prototyping21:37 - Davy: Atlassian's push toward higher-fidelity prototyping with AI tools22:35 - Davy's underrated use case: Slack MCP to capture keywords and surface support patterns23:11 - Ben: thin slices of AI help throughout the process vs. wide-scope automation24:15 - Closing reflections on craft: Samantha's quote — "AI is the average; craft is rising above it"25:21 - Thanks and outro Where to Find the HostsBen Callahan is Founder of Sparkbox (https://sparkbox.com) and Redwoods Design System Community (https://bencallahan.com/redwoods). Read his writings, have him present at your event, or engage with him as a coach or consultant at https://bencallahan.com Davy Fung is a Product Designer on the Atlassian Design System and host of the Design System Office Hours podcast (https://bit.ly/3AQYjjI). Connect with him on LinkedIn (https://bit.ly/3XrcF2W). Get the Raw DataAccess the complete survey data from Episode 073 to conduct your own analysis: https://bit.ly/4cIjAv8 Review the FigJam NotesDig into the collaborative notes we took as a community during the deep dive: https://bit.ly/4tW5ZHA Join the ConversationThe Question explores design systems topics through community research and deep-dive discussions. Participate in future episodes and contribute to the next survey: https://bit.ly/answerTheQuestion

    26 min
  8. Episode 073 Deep Dive: Design System AI Automation with Ben Callahan and Davy Fung

    27 Apr

    Episode 073 Deep Dive: Design System AI Automation with Ben Callahan and Davy Fung

    Episode 073 Deep Dive: Design System AI Automation with Ben Callahan and Davy Fung Host Ben Callahan is joined by co-host Davy Fung, a product designer on the Atlassian Design System (previously Meta) and host of the Design System Office Hours podcast, to explore AI as automation in design systems—what could be automated, what should be automated, where practitioners draw the line, and what "craft" still means in 2026. The survey was sent to 1,077 design system practitioners and received 101 responses across four questions: what percentage of your workflow could be automated with AI today; what percentage should be automated; in what areas should we avoid AI automation and why; and what does craft mean to you in a 2026 design systems context. The conversation covers the surprising gap between "could" and "should," the risk of using AI to automate broken processes without questioning them first, the tension between deterministic tasks and those requiring human judgment, and how community remains the best antidote to feeling overwhelmed by an ever-accelerating tooling landscape. Show Notes00:00 - Introduction and welcome00:29 - Guest background: Davy Fung on design systems at Atlassian and Meta01:27 - Design System Office Hours podcast approaching episode 10001:56 - Topic framing: AI as automation in design systems02:22 - Survey overview: the four questions asked03:14 - Survey stats: 1,077 sent, 101 responses03:44 - Framing quote from Greg: craft-driven practitioners as guardrail-keepers04:37 - Q1 & Q2 findings: could vs. should be automated04:59 - Davy's reaction: Zero Height report showed 60% not using token automation05:28 - Ben's take: design systems are ripe for automation by definition09:46 - Low-level manual work as craft: some practitioners prefer curation over automation10:17 - Community opens up: automation as habit vs. automation as know-how13:00 - The "could vs. should" gap: more caution than capability suggests17:00 - Davy's workflow: starting ~60–70% of work with AI or automation support23:34 - Bill's 0%/0% answer: automation exposes flawed processes AI won't question25:27 - Key insight: automating a hard process can mask that the process itself is wrong26:33 - Stephen's framework: black-and-white tasks vs. tasks needing intelligent reasoning28:01 - Practical example: using AI to write consumer-friendly token changelog messages29:57 - Connection to Episode 072: extreme support and openness to direct conversation30:12 - Lauren: AI used to train teams on new tools, preserving human knowledge transfer33:00 - Q3: areas to avoid AI automation — relationships, decision-making, creative direction36:15 - The "CEO said something" problem: top-down AI mandates without practical grounding36:43 - Skills vs. MCP: a lively side thread from the community38:00 - Craft in 2026: intentionality, systems thinking, and human judgment43:00 - The V0/AI coding tool support burden falling unexpectedly on design system teams45:02 - Community as the antidote to feeling overwhelmed by tooling change45:31 - Doug's question: how to expose design documentation to AI via MCP46:29 - Davy's answer: Atlassian's JSON-structured content powering their ADS MCP47:28 - Closing reflections; encouragement to dig into Q4 raw answers on craft47:55 - Community updates: Redwoods writing accountability group, Guy's "Cost of Yes" article48:51 - Upcoming events: Zeroheight Converge in Newcastle (October), UX London (June, code: JOIN_BC for 20% off)49:25 - Outro Where to Find the HostsBen Callahan is Founder of Sparkbox (https://sparkbox.com) and Redwoods Design System Community (https://bencallahan.com/redwoods). Read his writings, have him present at your event, or engage with him as a coach or consultant at https://bencallahan.com Davy Fung is a Product Designer on the Atlassian Design System and host of the Design System Office Hours podcast (https://bit.ly/3AQYjjI). Connect with him on LinkedIn (https://bit.ly/3XrcF2W). Get the Raw DataAccess the complete survey data from Episode 073 to conduct your own analysis: https://bit.ly/4cIjAv8 Review the FigJam NotesDig into the collaborative notes we took as a community during the deep dive: https://bit.ly/4tW5ZHA Join the ConversationThe Question explores design systems topics through community research and deep-dive discussions. Participate in future episodes and contribute to the next survey: https://bit.ly/answerTheQuestion

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The Question is a collaborative learning podcast about Design Systems. Smart people like you sign up, answer a few niche questions about design systems for each episode, and then we all get together to unpack the data we've gathered. Each week, I'll invite a new co-host to help facilitate the conversation. After the deep dive, the co-host and I record a recap of what we learned. That means, for each episode, you can listen to the recap and the full deep dive! If you're a design system practitioner, subscribe today (https://bencallahan.com/the-question) to receive an invitation to each episode. This only works if the community joins in! Stay in learning mode ❤️

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