Design Systems WTF by zeroheight | Biz and Tech Podcasts

October 13, 2026Episode 6555 min

What should you automate in design systems?

Live recording of the fortnightly podcast Design Systems WTF (back for season two!), where Luke Murphy and Michelle Chin attempt to combat all the amazing wtf in design systems. In each episode, they answer a single question around design system troubles with a Q&A from the live audience. Everyone talks about how you should automate as much as possible in design systems... but what can you actually automate? Luke and Michelle go through all the things that they've had success automating and things that are better with a human touch. From script-based automation, to tool-based automation, to AI-based automation. Show notes Automating your documentation webinar and accompanying github repo Design System Documentation Spec — what the AI audited its own output against Design Tokens and a Source of Truth — your first zeroheight article (March 2021), the "docs in the middle" future that still hasn't arrived Get in touch Luke on Bluesky Michelle on Bluesky Email: community@zeroheight.com

September 29, 2026Episode 6449 min

Are we doing motion right in design systems?

Live recording of the fortnightly podcast Design Systems WTF (back for season two!), where Luke Murphy and Michelle Chin attempt to combat all the amazing wtf in design systems. In each episode, they answer a single question around design system troubles with a Q&A from the live audience. With the release of Figma Motion, we finally have a tool that talks to our design systems that do motion. So now it's time to ask the question - are we covering motion within our design systems in the right way? Show notes Introducing Figma Motion — the Config 2026 launch (24 June) that kicked this topic off: timeline on the canvas, animated components, and motion variables with modes Atlassian Design System — Motion — the foundations page Luke screen-shares, with the four principles and the semantic token bundles like motion.popup.enter; the Applying motion page covers composing custom motion, and the motion primitive component is the componentised bit Uber Base — Motion — Michelle's pick, with the accessibility-first guidelines, timing and easing , transitions , the atomic animation patterns, and the motion office hours Carbon — Motion and Material — Motion — the other tokenised examples The Animator's Survival Kit — book by Richard Williams Designing Interface Animation — book by Val Head Val Head at Converge US 2023 — "Animation, Your Design System, and You!" GSAP (now owned by Webflow) and Lottie — the dev-side enablers Cassie Evans' live-coded GSAP game talk — (SmashingConf Freiburg 2025, and State of the Browser 2026 has a recording with transcript) Bonnie Kate Wolf — the illustration systems work Blush — Pablo Stanley's composable illustration tool Kano model — the "emotional connection has been proved" reference Luke on Bluesky Michelle on Bluesky Email: community@zeroheight.com — and send your design system's motion docs, we want to see them!

September 15, 2026Episode 6351 min

Is generative UI ever going to happen?

Live recording of the fortnightly podcast Design Systems WTF (back for season two!), where Luke Murphy and Michelle Chin attempt to combat all the amazing wtf in design systems. In each episode, they answer a single question around design system troubles with a Q&A from the live audience. A few years ago everyone started talking about how AI-powered interfaces are going to start generating UI on the fly. But how close is that from being a reality? Have there been any advances towards it being a mainstream thing? And what do we need to know from a design systems perspective to cater towards it? Show notes Rachel-Lee Nabors — "Death of the Browser" — the talk that sparked the topic ChatGPT Apps SDK — the plugin-style generative UI route, with Booking.com among the launch partners Interactive apps in Claude (MCP Apps) — the Anthropic equivalent A2UI — Google's declarative spec letting agents send UI as component descriptions rather than executing code The Complete Guide to Generative UI Frameworks in 2026 — a rundown of the generative UI framework landscape, covering A2UI, CopilotKit/AG-UI, MCP Apps and more NN/g's 10 Usability Heuristics — the "codified best practice" comparison Geri Reid — the Converge US talk — Geri’s talk about flexibility and NewsKit Get in touch Luke on Bluesky Michelle on Bluesky

September 1, 2026Episode 6241 min

What should we call design systems?

Live recording of the fortnightly podcast Design Systems WTF (back for season two!), where Luke Murphy and Michelle Chin attempt to combat all the amazing wtf in design systems. In each episode, they answer a single question around design system troubles with a Q&A from the live audience. We really screwed the pooch when it came to naming design systems. Why is the name so bad? And should we call it something else? Or should we bin the whole concept of design systems and start over in a completely decommodified way? Show notes NASA Graphics Standards Manual — the classic design handbook Luke references A Pattern Language — Christopher Alexander's town planning/architecture book Apple Human Interface Guidelines Atomic Design — Brad Frost's original article, which credits the earlier pattern library work Anna Debenham and Laura Kalbag — referenced in that article as part of the origins Co-op Experience Library — Co-op's renamed design system; their follow-up post explains they changed the name because "design system" implies it's only for designers, which backs up the whole episode thesis Co-op Digital Blog Valve's Handbook for New Employees — the famously flat, no-job-titles structure Luke half-remembers (it was Valve, not Epic) Luke on Bluesky Michelle on Bluesky

August 18, 2026Episode 6144 min

What is the future of agentic design systems?

Live recording of the fortnightly podcast Design Systems WTF (back for season two!), where Luke Murphy and Michelle Chin attempt to combat all the amazing wtf in design systems. In each episode, they answer a single question around design system troubles with a Q&A from the live audience. Agentic is the buzz word of the moment - but what does it actually mean for design systems? Luke and Michelle have a real conversation about what's hype, what's possible, and where they see it all going. Show notes Luke's webinar on automating documentation — the session covering the facts / distilled / authored buckets TJ Pitre / Southleft — doing agentic design system work (also behind FigmaLint with Brad and Ian Frost) Sil Bormüller — founder of Into Design Systems Romina Kavčič — The Design System Guide — the knowledge-graph-to-pattern work Luke describes Design System Documentation Spec (DSDS) — what you're auditing zeroheight docs against Obsidian and Roam Research — knowledge-graph tools mentioned by Michelle The Information Architecture Conference — Michelle's conference, which usually runs a knowledge graphs workshop n8n — Luke's stacked-agents automation instance Claude Code — used in Luke's Figma-MCP-to-code component flow zeroheight MCP — for the docs-as-context part of that flow Paper — mentioned by Mark in chat for better HTML output Pencil — design-as-code tool with .pen files Penpot — the open-source, web-dev-structured design tool Get in touch Luke on Bluesky Michelle on Bluesky

August 4, 2026Episode 6052 min

How do you get research findings back to the design system team?

Live recording of the fortnightly podcast Design Systems WTF (back for season two!), where Luke Murphy and Michelle Chin attempt to combat all the amazing wtf in design systems. In each episode, they answer a single question around design system troubles with a Q&A from the live audience. We're all in agreement that UX Research and design systems should work hand in hand. But how do you actually get this to work in practice? How can UX Researchers and design systems folks work best together? What cadence should you be doing things? And should you be included research findings as part of your design system documentation? Show notes Design System Documentation Spec (DSDS) zeroheight MCP zeroheight MCP overview (help docs) Design Systems WTF #39 — Should designers know how to code? zeroheight Design Systems Report Luke on Bluesky Michelle on Bluesky

July 21, 2026Episode 5947 min

Is Governance Just Theater?

Live recording of the fortnightly podcast Design Systems WTF (back for season two!), where Luke Murphy and Michelle Chin attempt to combat all the amazing wtf in design systems. In each episode, they answer a single question around design system troubles with a Q&A from the live audience. Governance seems to be one of those fancy words that gets thrown around a lot by design system people - but what level of governance is actually worthwhile, and how much of it is theater? Michelle and Luke will dive into governance, what level is good enough, and what bits they think you should scrap. Show notes Brad Frost's governance flowchart — the component approval flow Michelle borrowed and adapted: A Design System Governance Process . Also available as a Figma community file , and his lighter-touch follow-up: Master design system governance with this one weird trick Nathan Curtis on governance and contribution — his writing on contribution models referenced in the episode: Contributions to Design Systems and Team Models for Scaling a Design System Managing Chaos: Digital Governance by Design by Lisa Welchman — Michelle's book recommendation for adding process in a way that isn't "gross", with a historical look at how web governance emerged: Rosenfeld Media Org Design for Design Orgs by Peter Merholz & Kristin Skinner — Luke's companion-piece recommendation on ritual and process for design teams, transferable to design systems: petermerholz.com / O'Reilly Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul — the Netflix documentary on Juul and "how not to do a startup": Netflix

July 14, 2026Episode 5855 min

What do the Config 2026 announcements mean for design systems?

Live recording of the fortnightly podcast Design Systems WTF (back for season two!), where Luke Murphy and Michelle Chin attempt to combat all the amazing wtf in design systems. In each episode, they answer a single question around design system troubles with a Q&A from the live audience. Config 2026 happened in San Francisco last week, so we got together straight after the announcements to discuss what the announcements mean for design systems folks - from code on the canvas, to agents, skills, and connectors, to Figma Motion. What will these announcements mean for the work we do day to day? Show notes Blog post - What do the Config 2026 announcements mean for design systems?

July 7, 2026Episode 5740 min

⁠⁠Is driving adoption just a polite way of begging

Live recording of the fortnightly podcast Design Systems WTF (back for season two!), where Luke Murphy and Michelle Chin attempt to combat all the amazing wtf in design systems. In each episode, they answer a single question around design system troubles with a Q&A from the live audience. Adoption has been the perennial curse of design systems. Always a problem, never quite fixed, and loads of opinions about how to do it. But are we approaching it in the right way? Michelle and Luke talk about the problem with how adoption has been positioned, whether it's a tactical or cultural thing, and whether the goal should sit with design systems teams or the wider org. Show notes Design Systems are Dead. Long Live Design Systems

June 22, 2026Episode 5643 min

If AI can generate your design system docs, what does that say about how valuable those docs were in the first place?

Live recording of the fortnightly podcast Design Systems WTF (back for season two!), where Luke Murphy and Michelle Chin attempt to combat all the amazing wtf in design systems. In each episode, they answer a single question around design system troubles with a Q&A from the live audience. The State of AI in Design Systems report came out recently, and it shows that everyone is using AI to create documentation. Is this a good thing? Luke and Seb dive into the question of what good documentation is, whether it's even relevant anymore and what parts we should let AI own, and the parts we need to protect.

Design Systems WTF

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Listen to episodes

What should you automate in design systems?

Are we doing motion right in design systems?

Is generative UI ever going to happen?

What should we call design systems?

What is the future of agentic design systems?

How do you get research findings back to the design system team?

Is Governance Just Theater?

What do the Config 2026 announcements mean for design systems?

⁠⁠Is driving adoption just a polite way of begging

If AI can generate your design system docs, what does that say about how valuable those docs were in the first place?

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