Your Figma library is immaculate. Your token file is organized. Your component library covers 90% of use cases.

And your design system is still failing.

Not because the components are wrong. Not because the tokens don't scale. Because the documentation — the thing that actually helps people use what you've built — is either an afterthought, a ghost town, or missing entirely.

I've spent 24 years building websites — freelance, agency, in-house. At Mediagistic, I maintain a design system across dozens of B2C client sites built on WordPress and Elementor. The pattern is always the same: teams invest months into the system itself and maybe a long weekend into the docs. Then they wonder why adoption stalls.

Documentation isn't a nice-to-have. It's the component nobody talks about — and it's the most important one you'll ever build.

The adoption gap nobody measures

Here's what happens in most organizations:

A design systems team builds something beautiful. Tokens are named perfectly. Components follow every accessibility guideline. The architecture is clean. Ship it.

Then a new designer on the team needs to use it for the first time. They open the Figma library. They see dozens of components. They have no idea which widget to use for their specific client layout. There's no guidance on when to use a card versus a container. No explanation of the spacing philosophy. No context for why the button has three variants instead of four.

So they do what any rational person would do — they build their own thing from scratch. Or they guess. Or they message you and wait two days for a response.

The system is technically there. But without documentation, it's a locked room with no key.

I've watched this play out at every place I've worked. We measure "component coverage" and "how many sites are using the system" — but nobody measures whether the next person can actually find what they need and use it correctly without asking me. That's the adoption gap, and it's almost always a documentation problem.

What documentation actually is (and isn't)

Let me be specific about what I mean, because "write some docs" means different things to different people.

Documentation is not:

Documentation is:

The best documentation answers three questions: What is this? When should I use it? How do I use it right?

If your docs don't answer all three, you have a reference sheet — not documentation.

The four layers every design system needs

After years of building and rebuilding documentation, I've landed on four layers that actually drive adoption:

1. Principles — the "why"

Before anyone touches a component, they need to understand the philosophy behind the system. What are the design values? What tradeoffs have you made, and why?

This isn't fluffy mission statement territory. It's practical: "We prioritize consistency over flexibility because our clients expect a unified brand experience across every page we build." I put exactly that in our Elementor system docs at Mediagistic. That single sentence has saved dozens of arguments about whether to add a fifth button variant.

2. Guidelines — the "when"

This is where most documentation fails — or doesn't exist at all.

Guidelines tell people when to use Component A versus Component B. They explain the spacing scale philosophy. They answer the questions people actually have:

Without guidelines, every designer makes these decisions from scratch. Every time. That's not a system — it's anarchy with matching colors.

3. Usage documentation — the "how"

This is the tactical layer. For each component: what props and variants does it have? What are the do's and don'ts? What are real examples of it used correctly? What are common misuses?

The key word is real. Don't show me a button in isolation. Show me the button inside a form, inside a card, inside a page layout. Context is what makes documentation useful.

4. Contribution guidelines — the "what next"

Design systems aren't finished products. They evolve. And if you don't document how people should propose changes, request new components, or report bugs, you get two things: silence and resentment.

"I need a component that doesn't exist yet. What do I do?" If your docs can't answer that question, your system has a ceiling.

The mistakes I see everywhere

Writing docs for yourself, not your users. The people reading your documentation are not design systems experts. They're other designers on your team, developers, project managers, and clients who need pages built. Write for them, not for your own ego.

Documenting what exists, not how to decide. A component inventory is table stakes. Decision trees, usage guidelines, and "when to use X vs Y" comparisons — that's what actually reduces support tickets and improves consistency.

Treating documentation as a one-time task. Docs rot faster than code. Every component update, every new pattern, every deprecation needs a corresponding doc update. Build it into your weekly workflow, not something you'll "get to eventually."

Hiding docs behind tools. If your docs live only in Figma, you've excluded your developers. Only in the codebase? You've excluded your designers. Documentation should be accessible to everyone who touches the system — including the person who joins the team next month.

No search, no structure, no navigation. I've seen design system docs that are one enormous page. Or twelve Notion pages with no hierarchy. If people can't find what they need in under 30 seconds, they'll stop looking. And they won't tell you — they'll just quietly stop using the system.

Making it sustainable

The reason teams skip documentation is that it feels like extra work. Here's how to make it part of the work instead:

Write docs alongside the component, not after. Every time I build a new Elementor widget or template, the usage notes get written at the same time. Components ship with docs or they don't ship. Period.

Assign ownership. "Everyone is responsible" means nobody is responsible. One person on the team owns docs quality. They don't write everything — they review everything. That distinction matters.

Measure usage, not existence. Track page views. Track search queries — especially the ones that return no results. Talk to the people using your system regularly. The gap between what you've documented and what people are searching for is your entire roadmap.

Use real examples from real projects. Abstract examples are forgettable. Screenshots and code snippets from actual shipped features stick. They also prove the system works in production, not just in a sandbox.

The compounding returns

Good documentation compounds. Every hour you invest in clear guidance saves dozens of hours across every team that uses your system. Every decision framework you document is a decision that no longer needs to be debated from scratch in a Slack thread with six opinions and no resolution.

Bad documentation compounds too — just in the opposite direction. Every undocumented pattern is a consistency gap waiting to happen. Every missing guideline is a future "how do I..." message in your DMs.

Your design system is only as good as your team's ability to use it correctly. And that ability is determined almost entirely by your documentation.

Not your Figma library. Not your token file. Not your component playground with the nice animations.

Your docs.

Start there.

Kristen Sam

Kristen Sam

Senior web designer building design systems for B2C brands. Writing about systems thinking, practical UX, and making web design scale.