MatthewMarshallHuntsberry

How I Lead Design Systems Teams: Feedback, Ownership, and Scaling Trust

Summary

Design systems work is never just about components. It’s about people, alignment, and clarity at scale. I’ve learned that successful systems don’t run on tooling alone—they run on trust, shared ownership, and structured feedback.

My Approach to Feedback

I give most feedback through design critiques, both live and async. Whether we’re reviewing a new component, a token refactor, or an edge-case fix, the first question I ask is always the same:

Here’s a real example:

Before

Design audit showing misalignment between Figma and code for button components, including inconsistent states, missing focus styles, and mismatched prop definitions with callouts noting accessibility and variant issues.
Design audit showing misalignment between Figma and code for button components, including inconsistent states, missing focus styles, and mismatched prop definitions with callouts noting accessibility and variant issues.

After critique:

Comprehensive button system matrix displaying size and variant combinations for design system standardization
Comprehensive button system matrix displaying size and variant combinations for design system standardization

Critique isn’t about telling someone they’re wrong. It’s about helping them ask better questions, think systemically, and feel proud of what they ship.

Leading Through Contribution, Not Control

Creating Components and Applying Tokens in Token Studio

At Hearst, I lead a small core systems team supporting over 48 brands. That means our role isn’t to dictate—we build the platform others use. We scale by enabling contribution, not just managing assets.

I created a contribution workflow with:

  • Async design critiques and component proposals
  • A scorecard for accessibility, token use, and theming coverage
  • Code previews and token inspection for each submission
  • Git-style governance with a human review layer

This lets product designers, engineers, and brand teams safely contribute to the system without fear of breaking it. Feedback becomes a shared process, not a bottleneck.

Feedback at Scale: From Opinion to Evidence

Design system health dashboard showing 100 percent adoption coverage, 99.7 percent consistency, and 92.5 percent overall system health, with graphs of component insertions, top usages, and a radar chart breakdown of adoption metrics including time to value, reach, and usage growth.
Design system health dashboard showing 100 percent adoption coverage, 99.7 percent consistency, and 92.5 percent overall system health, with graphs of component insertions, top usages, and a radar chart breakdown of adoption metrics including time to value, reach, and usage growth.

Feedback gets even stronger when it’s grounded in data. When I noticed high detachment rates in our component library, I built a health dashboard using the Figma REST API, D3.js, and OpenAI to track adoption, consistency, and drift.

Instead of guessing why components failed, we could see:

  • Which variants were duplicated the most
  • Which components triggered overrides
  • What patterns had low reuse or poor ergonomics

We used this data to focus critiques on areas of real impact—leading to a 70% reduction in detachment and a 5x increase in component reuse.

TL;DR

I lead design systems like products. They are measured, intentional, and collaborative. Feedback is how I scale trust, build alignment, and help people grow their systems thinking. The best work doesn’t come from control. It comes from a culture of clarity, ownership, and honest critique.