Vittorio Vittori

Design System Architect / Senior UX Designer

Clear Ownership and Governance

Establish clear processes for contributions, reviews, and decision-making to ensure quality and consistency.

Design Systems
Maintenance

A design system without ownership is a temporary collection of assets.

Clear ownership and governance define who decides, how decisions are made, and how the system evolves over time.

Without governance, consistency erodes, contributions slow down, and the system becomes a source of friction instead of alignment.

Define explicit ownership roles

Ownership must be visible and understood across teams.

Component ownership matrix

Assign clear owners for foundations, components, and documentation. Assume collective ownership without accountability. Make ownership discoverable in documentation. Rely on informal or implicit responsibility.
A list of tools and services related to this argument. Managing ownership
GitHub logoGithub Codeowners Figma logoFigma Teams
Documenting ownership
Notion logoNotion Confluence logoConfluence
it may be outdated

Establish decision-making processes

Governance is about enabling decisions, not blocking them.

Decision workflow

Define how changes are proposed, reviewed, and approved. Handle decisions ad hoc or in private channels. Document acceptance criteria and design principles. Approve changes without shared evaluation standards.
A list of tools and services related to this argument. Issue tracking
GitHub logoGitHub Jira logoJira Linear logoLinear
Communication tools
Slack logoSlack
it may be outdated

Balance control and autonomy

Strong governance creates alignment without centralizing every decision.

Governance boundaries

Centralize decisions that affect system-wide consistency. Micro-manage local or contextual adaptations. Allow teams to extend the system within defined boundaries. Force one-size-fits-all solutions.
A list of tools and services related to this argument. Documentation
Zeroheight logoZeroheight Docusaurus logoDocusaurus
Design tokens
Amazon logoStyle Dictionary Palette generation
it may be outdated

Make contribution paths explicit

A system that cannot be extended will eventually be bypassed.

Contribution options

Provide clear contribution guidelines and templates. Require insider knowledge to contribute. Review contributions with cross-disciplinary input. Limit governance to a single function or role.
A list of tools and services related to this argument. Templates
GitHub logoGitHub templates Mozilla logoCONTRIBUTING.md
Automation
GitHub logoAutomated CI checks
it may be outdated

Why this principle matters

Clear ownership and governance prevent entropy.

They enable the system to evolve deliberately, support multiple teams, and remain trusted over time.

Clear Ownership and Governance