Noelle joins me again for some 2026 predictions trend encapsulations, and we try to unpack the absolute madness of the first two months of 2026.
On one hand, things are changing so fast my head is spinning. On the other, the way we’re working in at our companies can be slow to evolve. The reinvention moment for design systems is here; hell, the reinvention moment for software delivery is here. 2026 isn’t going to look like anything we’ve done in design systems to date, and there’s a ton of opportunity to change how we work. (For the cynics, yes, in some bad ways, too; but I’m not all pessimistic.)
Here’s what I’m seeing so far for 2026:
1️⃣ Designing with code is in, making pictures of UIs is out. There will be a lot of experimentation, change, new tools, and frankly, reluctance, but this is the way of the future. Can you do it in your company right now? No, probably not. But don’t think this isn’t coming.
(Plus, the rise of the design engineer and a return to the early 2000s ways of working? I hope so!)
2️⃣ The new critical deliverables for systems teams are design guidelines, agent rules, tokens, and semantic APIs. As Noelle puts it, components are out, foundations are in. You have to help your team (and that means all roles, not just designers and sometimes engineers) deliver on-brand, high-quality, visuals and code, and the ways we do that go far beyond Figma components these days.
3️⃣ We're gonna see a real focus on brand expression, but also on one-offs. Noelle brings us this insight from large enterprises: if you can’t define (and ship rules around) what your brand is, you’re never going to see it again on the other side of LLM-generated code, experimentations, and one-offs. See also: design guidelines and foundations.
4️⃣ Design system teams, you do organizational behavior change. You are no longer in the business of shipping components. Work is changing rapidly and you are here to guide your organization through adopting new design and engineering process.
5️⃣ The next chapter of the design system narrative is around quality rather than efficiency. AI owns the efficiency pitch, and design systems has to offer something else. The story that we need to get ahead of, and start telling now, is something about how the design system is going to enable your PMs to ship a feature to prod, that fits the brand, and isn't spaghetti code. What is that, and can design systems do it? And can we position ourselves in a place to deliver that?
Read on for a peek into the episode.
Elyse:
The story we've been telling for the last 10 plus years has been about efficiency. We're still using this efficiency story, even though we're also now talking about LLMs. We're saying, how efficient can I be by having the LLM generate all of these things for me? And I think that story is true, but I think it's immediate. 6, 12, 18 months from now, I don't think it's gonna be novel anymore.
What is it that your execs and leaders are gonna be saying, when that's not new and novel anymore? And I think they're gonna be saying things like, why is the code quality of this so crappy? How come I'm seeing the brand get watered down into a nothingburger in all of these designs? Our PMs, they can deliver working prototypes of feature concepts, like why is the design so bad? None of those things are really about efficiency.
Noelle
Right.
Elyse
The story that we need to get ahead of, and start telling now, is something about how the design system is going to enable your PMs to ship a feature to prod, that fits the brand, and isn't spaghetti code. What is that, and can design systems do it? And can we position ourselves in a place to deliver that?
Noelle
AI already owns the word efficiency. Design systems sharing space with that isn't going to compete. AI's going to win the efficiency pitch.
Elyse
Yeah, I think that may already be true.
Noelle
Yeah. So what does design systems have? What do we offer? If you understand how to position design and engineering ops and high quality craft as an enablement operation—
Elyse
My favorite word, enablement.
Noelle
—inside of your organization, people get that. We're here to make your experience great and if we can make our designers and engineers and our product owners and partners have the best experience ever, and we can take the burden here, we can take the burden there, we can take that, we can take that, figure out the things that you can take from them that are the things that they don't wanna do, right? The things that could be centralized. Those are the things that are the design system.
On Theme is officially two, and this year we’re changing it up a bit. You can expect: one interview episode per month, rather than per week, with occasional minisodes in between. I’m also exploring radio-show-call-in style Q&A, video (!), and more. Plus I have a stacked lineup of interviews I can’t wait for you to hear.
I’m also going sponsor free and listener supported. You won't hear ads or purchased interviews here. I'm making content for expert design system practitioners, by expert design system practitioners. I'm not a full-time content creator; this podcast is a labor of love on my nights and weekends. Your monthly payment, no matter how big or small, helps me cover the time I take (up to 8hrs per episode!) to make my guests sound great, software costs, and hopefully one day pay my incredible guests for their time and knowledge.
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Anyone else feeling like this ^ too? How are you all holding up with all of the ups and downs and change we’re seeing? Reply to this email or DM me on LinkedIn and let me know.
See you next episode!,
