Why Teams Avoid Design Systems

Understanding why teams avoid design systems provides essential insights for improving adoption. Teams rarely avoid design systems without reason; their decisions typically reflect real experiences, perceived limitations, or practical constraints that make custom solutions seem more attractive than shared components.

What Causes Teams to Avoid Design Systems

Several factors contribute to design system avoidance. Technical barriers include complex installation requirements, framework incompatibilities, bundle size concerns, and performance impacts. When integrating the design system requires significant setup effort or introduces technical problems, teams may conclude that custom solutions involve less friction.

Flexibility concerns arise when teams feel the design system constrains their ability to implement specific designs or interactions. If components lack sufficient customization options or if making modifications requires extensive overrides, teams may prefer building purpose-built solutions that exactly match their requirements.

Historical experiences influence current decisions. Teams that previously encountered abandoned design systems, unresponsive maintainers, or inadequate support may be reluctant to depend on another shared system. Past frustrations create skepticism that must be overcome through demonstrated reliability.

How Avoidance Patterns Develop

Avoidance often begins with a single negative experience. A team attempts to use the design system, encounters a significant issue, and decides to build custom components instead. Without intervention, this pattern becomes self-reinforcing as the team develops expertise in their custom solutions and loses familiarity with the design system.

Time pressure frequently triggers avoidance decisions. When facing tight deadlines, teams may perceive the learning curve of unfamiliar components as a risk and default to approaches they already know. Even if the design system would save time in the long run, immediate deadline pressure favors familiar patterns.

Organizational dynamics also play a role. Teams with strong technical identities may view using shared components as giving up control or accepting limitations imposed by others. Acknowledging these dynamics enables more nuanced approaches to encouraging adoption.

Key Considerations

• Exit interviews with teams that stop using the design system reveal specific improvement opportunities
• Reducing installation complexity and setup time addresses common friction points
• Providing escape hatches for edge cases reduces concerns about flexibility constraints
• Maintaining reliable support and quick bug fixes builds trust that overcomes historical skepticism
• Offering migration assistance helps teams with deadline pressure find paths to adoption

Common Questions

How can organizations identify which teams are avoiding the design system?

Usage analytics that track component adoption across codebases reveal which teams have low or declining design system usage. Comparing usage rates across similar projects or teams of similar size highlights outliers that may warrant investigation. Direct outreach to low-usage teams through surveys or conversations provides qualitative context for quantitative findings. Framing these conversations as opportunities to gather feedback rather than compliance checks encourages honest responses.

What should design system teams do when avoidance is justified?

Sometimes teams avoid the design system for valid reasons that the system cannot easily address. Specialized applications with unique interaction patterns, legacy codebases with significant migration costs, or projects with unusual performance requirements may genuinely fall outside the design system’s target scope. Acknowledging these cases and establishing clear criteria for when design system usage is expected versus optional prevents frustration and maintains credibility.

Summary

Teams avoid design systems due to technical barriers, flexibility concerns, past negative experiences, and organizational dynamics. Understanding these reasons enables targeted improvements that address root causes rather than symptoms. Accepting that some avoidance may be justified while working to reduce unnecessary friction leads to more sustainable adoption outcomes.