— Donella Meadows, systems researcher / Source (YouTube)
Elements: These are the people, the factory, the physical stuff that you can count, measure and see.
Interrelationships: They’re what we call the structure of the system. They’re what holds it together. They are critical. They’re the rules of the game. They’re rewards and punishments, prizes, information signals.
You should spend a lot more time asking how the interrelationships go, than asking who’s the boss and who’s on second base. The elements won’t change a system, the interrelationships do. Example: You could take all the people out of the University of Michigan, put new people in (as of course happens every four years) and it’s still the University of Michigan.
Function / goal: It’s sometimes not at all what the people in the system would say it is doing. But it is the result, that is clearly being produced every time you see that system. Example: What is the function / goal of the national economic system? There are a lot of possible goals, but the one the system is producing is growth. What everyone is trying to keep the system do is growth.
Design systems are any set of decisions governed across the organization.
— Hayley Hughes / Source (YouTube)
A design system is not a pattern library, brand guidelines or a Sketch file. It’s the same thing as having a list of ingredients but not having any recipe. It’s a system of living principles, guides and components used by designers and developers to build consistent products and experiences.
— Inayaili de León, Microsoft Azure / Source (YouTube)
Design systems are more than components and guidelines. They’re living organisms made up of the relationships and mechanisms you use to foster collective ownership.
— Magera Moon, Etsy / Source (Medium)
A design system defines and organizes the elements and logic that make up an ecosystem, to make it teachable and scalable.
— Reed Enger, Google / Source (YouTube)