Seeing my team's old Photoshop mockups side by side with our live site finally made me understand why we needed a design system

I spent 2 years arguing with our devs about inconsistent spacing before I laid out all 47 mockups from the last 3 projects on a table and realized every single one used a different 4px, 6px, 8px, or 10px gap for the same kind of card component - has anyone else had that moment where you physically see the mess and just know you have to build something?.

2 comments

2 Comments

betty_shah3d ago

47 mockups? I almost choked on my coffee reading that number. That's not a mess, that's a whole museum of chaos. I mean, 4, 6, 8, and 10 pixel gaps for the same card type? That's like if a mechanic used four different sizes of wrench on the same nut depending on which day of the week it was. I've seen some awful inconsistency in my time, but that's a level of wild that deserves its own exhibit. You must have felt like you were looking at a crime scene when you laid them all out like that. Honestly, good on you for walking out of that room and knowing you had to build something to fix it.

perez.cole3d ago

Has anyone ever found themselves in a design meeting explaining away a 6px gap as "it's a feature"?