Design systems must document intent and rationale for AI to use them properly¶
Insight: When AI tools consume design system component libraries, they reproduce patterns technically (correct spacing, grid, tokens) but fail at conceptual hierarchy — giving equal visual weight to important and secondary data. The root cause is that design systems document "what" (components, tokens, patterns) but not "why" (hierarchy rules, information density rationale, contextual emphasis decisions). These unwritten principles lived in designers' heads and were transmitted through design reviews, not documentation.
Detail: A product manager generated a dashboard using the team's component library via an AI design tool. The output matched all technical constraints (grid, spacing, color tokens) but failed at information hierarchy. The designer couldn't cite design system documentation to explain why it was wrong — the hierarchy rules simply weren't documented. This reveals a critical gap: design systems optimized for human designers who absorb implicit knowledge through reviews need explicit intent documentation to serve AI consumers effectively.
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Related: existing entry "Making design systems AI-legible is the next frontier" in external/design-systems.md — CORROBORATES