# Reading list for new design system managers

> Things to read if it’s your first time managing a design system.

> Last updated: 2023-02-09

Back in December 2022, I became the product manager for the [GOV.UK‌ Design System](https://design-system.service.gov.uk), providing maternity cover for [the team’s](https://design-system.service.gov.uk/design-system-team/) excellent PM. I wasn’t a complete newbie to the design system as I’d used it as the baseline for design decisions when I was Head of Product at a startup.

I hadn’t thought much about what it might be like to manage a design system though. It was a mystery: would working as a product manager on a design system be like working on other products, platforms and services? I needed to read up and get prepared, and the articles and blog posts below were really helpful in my first few weeks on the team.

This **is not** a canonical list of what everyone new to managing design systems should read, it’s just a list of things that helped *me*. Hopefully you’ll find them useful, and let me know on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/stevenjmesser), [Mastodon](https://indieweb.social/@stevenjmesser) or [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenjmesser/) if there’s anything you recommend I read too!

These are presented in no particular order. Open all the links and get reading!

- [The myth that design systems solve easy problems](https://amyhupe.co.uk/articles/the-myth-that-design-systems-solve-easy-problems/), 4 mins
- [Cultivating design systems by bringing intention](https://amyhupe.co.uk/articles/Bringing-intention-to-design-systems/), 3 mins
- [Why Figma is selling to Adobe for $20 billion](https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/8/23445821/figma-adobe-acquisition-design-vr-ai-meta), 53 mins
- [The 5 Phases of Figma’s Community-Led Growth: From Stealth to Enterprise](https://review.firstround.com/the-5-phases-of-figmas-community-led-growth-from-stealth-to-enterprise), 16 mins
- [A new accessibility strategy for the GOV.UK Design System](https://accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2023/01/06/a-new-accessibility-strategy-for-the-gov-uk-design-system/), 5 mins
- [The hoof and the horse](https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/the-hoof-and-the-horse/), 3 mins
- [Systems, Mistakes, and the Sea](https://www.robinrendle.com/essays/systems-mistakes-and-the-sea), 9 mins
- [There Is No Design System](https://24ways.org/2019/there-is-no-design-system/), 7 mins
- [Products with community at their core](https://sarahdrinkwater.medium.com/products-with-community-at-their-core-e53d8810276b), 9 mins
- [Design System Maturity Levels](https://www.millisecond.co/blog/design-systems-maturity), 5 mins
- [Web resilience is about users – not a shortcut for developers](https://christianheilmann.com/2023/01/18/web-resilience-is-about-users-not-a-shortcut-for-developers/), 6 mins
- [Leave the web better than you found it](https://www.w3.org/TR/design-principles/#leave-the-web-better), 1 min