I fear an entire generation of designers has been misled into thinking design systems are a collection of generic user interface building blocks, and that that somehow can lead to some kind of customer—and ultimately business—success.

If I had a nickel for every design system team I came across that was trying to build their “own version of Material Design“…

Why do that? What makes you think your date picker will be nearly as good as Material Design’s date picker? They’ve had a decade to iterate on and refine theirs.

However, there is one good answer. Your date picker can be “better” than Material’s if its more specific. More specific how? More specific to your organization’s—and customer’s—wants and needs.

Maybe your organization wants the date picker to use the custom corporate typeface. Material Design won’t have it built in, but yours could.

Maybe your customers want the date picker to be navigable by decade. Material Design won’t have an option for that, but yours could.

Stop trying to create a foundational library of interface building blocks. Stop trying to make generic buttons or cards that everyone can use; for that, just use Material Design, or any of the other great open-source design systems out there.

Instead, find specific use cases that need user interface solutions at scale. Buried just beneath the surface of the case studies and success stories of great design system work are specific drivers.

When Work & Co helped to create IKEA’s design system, they had a specific mandate: “creating IKEA ’s first e-commerce-enabled mobile app… To bring IKEA’s famed catalog to life for the digitally native, the app leads with inspiration. Customers browse the app the same way they would IKEA’s showroom—imagining how products complement their home or aesthetic—but with technology enhancing the journey.”

When Instrument helped Nike build their design system, they had a specific entry point: “our journey to the Nike design system began more than a decade ago, when we were first tapped to reimagine Nike.com.” That’s why Nike’s design system leans heavily toward components that typically found in e-commerce experiences.

When Lyft was growing their design system, Product Design Manager Runi Goswami reported that components “were crafted with small screens, unreliable internet connections, and touch inputs in mind.”

When Spotify was evolving their design system, the initial visual alignment was driven by shipping a dark interface as a response to user preference.

The list goes on.

The more shared specific use cases you can identify, the more immediately useful your design system becomes.

Why does design system work need specific use cases? Because useful business drivers are always specific, not generic. Tie your design system work to specific business drivers and watch your buy-in and adoption woes get easier overnight.