Glossary
Design System Drift
Design system drift is the unintended divergence of a design system from its semantics, assets, code, documentation or product use over time.
- Design systems
- Product consistency
What design system drift means
Design system drift is unintended divergence between the system's semantics, design assets, coded components, documentation or product implementations over time.
The term describes a condition where the different parts of a design system no longer represent the same decisions consistently.
How drift appears
Drift can appear as renamed properties, missing runtime states, detached components, incompatible versions or product-specific forks.
When difference is not drift
Discuss your product system
Talk to Tcules about design system divergence, product implementation gaps and the decisions needed to bring them back into alignment.