Design systems are today’s cure and tomorrow’s cause of shitty software

Making software used to be easy. Well, easier . Twenty years ago, desktop software was software. 99.999% of that used a mouse, keyboard, and monitor. Most were web-based–using plain HTML, CSS, and a (relative) sprinkle of Javascript. Frameworks existed, but there were less of them. Was it limiting? Oh, yeah–to the point of claustrophobia.

February 19, 2026