Supercharging your design system contribution model

Contribution plays a central role in the growth and evolution of design systems, but identifying the right process to foster regular and valuable contributions isn’t always straightforward. Let’s talk about why…

In mature design systems, we expect to see high levels of adoption, advocation, and engagement. With this comes sustainability through regular and diverse contributions from a range of consumers, all actively engaged in growing the experience language. In an ideal world at least!

Contribution is when a consumer of a design system gives back — enriching the system by completing work to create, extend, or enhance one or more tangible assets.

Conversely, nascent systems can (and often do) struggle to establish supportive processes that foster and encourage this behavior.

Let me share with you why that might be, and what you can do to solve the challenge.

Let’s define “contribution”

Contribution is when a consumer of a design system gives back — completing work that enriches the system by creating, extending, or enhancing tangible assets. It requires a consumer to identify a gap, know how to fill it, and be compelled to invest the time in doing so.

Nathan Curtis wrote a fantastic article on defining contributions that’s well worth a read. As he explains, there are different types of contributions that range in effort, cost, and complexity.

Take a look at this.

Contribution scale

At the lower end of the scale, we see small ticket items like bug fixes or the addition of a new typographic setting. Small amendments can be made without causing ripples across the design system and in a somewhat autonomous fashion (without the support of the core team).