We have audited a lot of design systems. The pattern is almost always the same: a beautiful Figma library, a half-implemented Storybook, and a production codebase where designers and developers have quietly stopped talking to each other.
Trait 1: A single source of truth for tokens
Every design system we have seen succeed treats design tokens as the contract between design and code. Not Figma styles, not hardcoded hex values in Tailwind configs — actual named tokens that live in a shared file and flow into both tools from a single source.
When a designer changes the primary brand colour, it should propagate to every component automatically — in the browser and in Figma. This is achievable today with Style Dictionary and a short pipeline. Teams that invest two days setting this up save weeks of drift over a year.
Trait 2: Components are documented at the point of usage
Storybook is useful, but it is one more place developers have to visit. The design systems that actually get adopted inline their documentation: prop tables in the editor, usage examples in the codebase, and error messages that tell developers what went wrong and how to fix it. Remove the friction.
Trait 3: The system serves the product, not the other way around
The biggest failure mode we see is over-engineering for hypothetical future requirements. A Button component with 47 props and an elaborate variant system serves the component library, not the product. Start with what you actually need. Add abstraction only when the third duplication forces your hand.