I love that this title directly goes against the Figma post from 23 days ago.

(https://www.designernews.co/stories/94554-design-systems-will-replace-design-jobs)

I commented in that thread:

I think it's interesting that you understand design systems to be something that automates a designers job. I've felt lately that a design system is something that helps a design team focus on more important things. If we have a system that makes the UI component of our job faster, and more efficient, we can focus on a lot more than just skinning new UI.

Imagine smaller teams being able to focus on truly testing usability, prototyping crazy new ideas and creating new functionality that they just didn't have time to conceive in the past because they were too busy pushing pixels.

I think Design Systems will help designers have much more impact on business, and when that happens, designers could become even more of an asset.

I was happy to see your article - and I agree with what you've written.

I like this article.

The designer job is here to stay. Although design systems make a designer’s job much more efficient, they cannot be put in the pilot’s seat when it comes to creating an authentic design process.

Yep. And, efficiency gains are easily spent on higher expectations.

To think design systems will replace our jobs is just silly in the first place.

Design Systems do, and will replace design jobs not through automation but through efficiency.

I'm not too sure why this is a point of contention. A good design system decreases the number of designers required to design, maintain or scale a product.

As a result, if your design team went from 10 - 5 then your design system replaced 5 jobs. This is the point.

In fact, if you design a system that doesn't replace design jobs, then you haven't really designed a very good system in the first place.

The designer job is here to stay. Although design systems make a designer’s job much more efficient

You said it yourself. Efficiency = less people are needed to achieve the same results.

While in the past a 'UI Designer' was needed to make wireframes come to life and look good, today a UI designer without product thinking skills is not a very important asset inside a team that uses a design system. New opportunities were opened as well - Illustrators, 3d artists are in a higher demand, and i believe there are more jobs for most types of designers and thinkers.

I love your Website. Really slick! :-)

Silly, non-premise to argue in the first place.

Design systems realize their benefit for teams over a certain scale (lets say 5-6+ full time designers). At that point maintaining a design system across an organization IS a full-time job. Smaller teams don't usually have the time to focus on a system they aren't going to get that much value out of.

I'd be truly surprised if this is becomes a common problem in the industry.

I remember when we used to call them "style guides".

People forget that to get a system running, you need people to first build it, and then continuing maintaining it. If anything, it creates more work rather than less, at least this holds true for bigger organisation.

Tackling changes and updates from multiple teams, along with communication, documentation, and releases, heck it's a teams worth of work on it's own. Smaller teams can afford to skip some steps, but the true worth is about efficiency, so designers can focus on other parts that attention is sorely needed. At some point, you'll have to split you attention and get back into greasing the system's gear.

Lol, Obviously. It will never replace design jobs. Design system is to help the designer to speed up work and as Marc Edwards mentioned a term 'efficiency' :)